New to the forum, couple questions.

[ARhead]

HI,
This is my first post, I'm from Canada, and of course I'm looking to spend as little as possible and I have no prior credits. I've completed the three free courses from Sophia and The Institutes ethics course. There is a job opportunity that I'd like to pursue which has the requirement of ANY bachelor's degree. And I thought I'd get the easiest fastest degree, which seemed like it might be TESU BALS, having all those free electives. At the same time what I spend most of my waking hours doing is investing and reading about it so I thought a BSBA in GM or finance would be up my alley. So I jumped right into the SL Macroeconomics course. One prominent user here said he could do that in a day. Even though the coursework is reasonably familiar and I will pass the course, I think it could take me a month to do it, if I'm actually trying to cement the learning of the material and not chance failing.
Now, I think a macro course should probably take that long, but when you're paying a monthly fee to SL, the cost starts to quickly creep up. I also cannot see how many of the other courses needed for that BSBA wouldn't take as long or longer than my current course. 
So the question is which are the outlier courses? The macro which would take me a month which is in line with 30 credits a year, or the ethics and sophia that can be done in a snap? (though I scored really high I took 3 1/2 hours to pass the ethics test) 
Or is it that most of this forum and people all over youtube are hovering in the 200 IQ range to finish degree's in months or a year, or maybe I'm dumber than I thought.
Or are you just going about this differently. I understand the pass/fail grading, but I wouldn't want to risk failing and having to pay for the course again, and I'm not sure if the fail goes on your transcript. I tend to read and take tests slow, as I don't want to screw up, but then I see people studying for a few days  to test out and getting lots of grades in the 50's, so maybe I'm just being a perfectionist...I dunno.
I'm just not sure that this path to a degree makes sense unless you can do it reasonably fast (and I'm not sure how people are racking up the credits they say they are unless they're going about things in a completely different way.
Sorry for the rambling post.Thanks for any input. 

[posabsolute]

The macro course from SDC is simpler to pass imo, I think I did it in a week but it was also one of the course where I was a bit concerned at the final exam... If you go for speed, remember that you are optimizing for a total of 70%.

In the earlier days a lot of course at SL had a stronger weighting ratio on the coursework which is generally open book and so it was easier to keep high scores on those. Which then enabled you to fail the final exam without caring..


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[davewill]

...
Or are you just going about this differently. I understand the pass/fail grading, but I wouldn't want to risk failing and having to pay for the course again, and I'm not sure if the fail goes on your transcript. I tend to read and take tests slow, as I don't want to screw up, but then I see people studying for a few days  to test out and getting lots of grades in the 50's, so maybe I'm just being a perfectionist...I dunno.
I'm just not sure that this path to a degree makes sense unless you can do it reasonably fast (and I'm not sure how people are racking up the credits they say they are unless they're going about things in a completely different way.
Sorry for the rambling post.Thanks for any input. 

The people doing this fast are purposely NOT being perfectionists and are just going for the pass. There are providers that charge per course rather than per month if you can't or don't want to move that fast. Saylor.org, OnlineDegree, Davar, CLEP, DSST, and Coopersmith are all possibilities. Plus you can take TECEPs, UExcels, ASU Global, and community college courses.

[bjcheung77]

ARhead - which province are you in, did you take any college or institute courses at all? Are you familiar with another language, say French? StraighterLine courses are the bomb, that's where you should get all your LL courses for the BSBA/BALS, and the UL from Study.com - My suggestion is to finish all the FREE courses so they can be used for your FREE electives.

Note: If StraighterLine/Study.com is a bit too much for you, you can try using Saylor/Sophia.org to see how they are in comparison. I will still recommend the SL/Study.com combo for the majority of the courses as you may not be close to a CLEP site to use MS Vouchers (unless you're near the border).

[natshar]

If you want a bsba wgu and charter oak are cheaper by at least 2k. Charter oak also let's you double dip requirements and if you do this right it actually allows for more free electives than tesu. A tesu bsba only allows 6 credits free electives. Just letting you know of this.

Tesu used to be the preferred option for people on this forum but that is slowly changing due their increased cost and stricter requirements. That being said they still are a good option for a quick degree.

[dfrecore]

I think COSC is a better option if you want to go more cheaply, it depends on if you need ACBSP accreditation for a business degree or not. They are certainly the better option if you want a BSLS degree - where you could create your own major, and choose business/management/leadership courses that you want, and combine it with something like communications or psych or something like that. Then, you can skip all the BSBA courses that you're not interested in.

I personally don't like the membership courses, where you need to finish in a month. Sophia has a coupon that I think is still active, and you can purchase 5 courses for $500 or something like that - and then take a few months to start, and about 3 months to complete a course. I prefer not having a short deadline, but that's just me. If I HAVE to have a deadline, then I'm doing Study.com instead of SL, I'm not a fan of having to read a textbook online (although I do read the transcripts rather than watch the videos on Study.com). I just don't like reading a huge amount of text, and hate those open-book exams where I'm searching through the text to try to come up with the answer - tortuous. But some people LOVE SL. To each their own.

As for trying to get a high score on a course, I'm not one of those. I want to pass and move on. After 20 years of working, I know that I do not need the info in a macroecon book to do any kind of job I'm looking at, nor would I want a job that would require the info. Not my thing. If you're willing to get a 75-80% instead of 95%, then you can go faster. But it's up to you on what you want to get out of each course. I think you're better off going quickly and spending more time on the things that interest you, or things that you want to learn for your career, but again, everyone gets to decide for themselves.

I know WGU was suggested, but I don't think that's an option if you're Canadian. So my advice: get the COSC BSLS.

[ARhead]

I was just setting up my student profile at TESU so I can apply, as I was just reading TESU makes their changes in April/July so better to apply sooner than later. One question I have is about evaluations, and that you only get two before you actually enroll and spend a significant amount of money. I only have 15 credits at this point. I've read different things like Dfrecore say she liked to send transcripts in frequently, so they don't make changes on you and your credits go where you want them to. But how does this work if you only get two evaluations?
Or is this a case of one being able to send in transcripts often and the school accepts the credits but will only apply those credits to the different parts of the degree plan twice before enrollment.
If that was barely coherent I'm just trying to avoid a situation in which I find myself with a bunch of worthless shmoop-like credits. I'd send em in after every course if that was an option.

[bjcheung77]

Previously, when I wrote the Beginners Guide in 2016, TESU didn't start to make so many changes, and that was when I actually recommended to just work on all your general education/free electives that will transfer for the degrees at the Big 3 & WGU. It would be a waste of cash flow paying enrollment fees when you're just transferring the credits into the school. In fact, if you read the guide, it mentions to do up to 90 credits before even applying.

Since the changes, if you've decided on the Big 3/WGU, you should just continue taking courses for credit until you've maxed out - just make sure they hit the requirements for your degree. With TESU, I recommend doing all the ACE credits that are NOT from SL/Study.com or any provider that will send the transcripts to TESU for free, and just submit that first transcript for $20. The final transcript or subsequent transcripts you send will be $15 each.

If you're taking courses at Study.com/StraighterLine for example, you can keep adding them to ACE and also get them to send the updates to TESU for free. You just need to send in a final ACE transcript when you apply for graduation - thus, it would only cost you $35 total. I am frugal, I do things cheap/easy/fast and has value - as long as the ROI is great, I purchase that course as it interests me and gets me credits.

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Update Edit: Unlike COSC/Excelsior, there is no yearly enrollment fee at TESU. You just have to keep your catalog year by taking a TECEP (cheapest option or paying an enrollment extension fee of $70/$75). In fact, you can take the Medical Terminology TECEP - previously, I was told the TECEP had to be 3 credits in 2016 - I believe now, it can be just 1 credit. So, technically, for $50 - if you pass or fail this TECEP, your catalog year is good for 1 year from that date. Now catalog year is important, it will determine your requirements for the degree.

[ARhead]

Thanks BJ. I had a couple things confused. Crystal clear now.

[LevelUP]

Or is it that most of this forum and people all over youtube are hovering in the 200 IQ range to finish degree's in months or a year, or maybe I'm dumber than I thought.

Most people here are your typical high school B/C students. 

Don't let self-limiting beliefs hold you back.  People will often say I can't sing, dance, do math or speak a foreign language.   They say that because of previous bad experiences or/and they haven't been taught efficient learning techniques.

If you put someone in an extreme motivational situation like holding a gun to someone's head or offer them a million dollars do learn a skill you be surprised what someone could accomplish.

Now as far as SL is concerned, it is one of the easiest ways to earn credit because of the grading system.  If you average 80% on the quizzes, you need less than 50% on the final to pass.

With the open book quizzes in SL you need to use Ctr+C to copy and Ctr+V to paste.  Also, use "quotes string" to search for specific multiple word phrases.  It's how good you are at searching that will determine your success. 

What I did was go through the animated slides for each lesson, ignored the book and other materials and just took the quiz. For the first quiz, you can retake it as many times as you need.

For keeping track of time just focus on how many minutes it will take you for each lesson and take it one step at a time.  I am a believer in progress over perfection.  You learn by failing.