About CS Bachelor and probable MS pathway

[tak916]

Hello all, I'm Aaron from Shanghai, due to depression I dropped out from a fulltime university and my major is CS, I have an AA in public management from CUC in China. I know there's CU Boulder and Ball State MSCS that does not require a bachelor's degree on Coursera, but my budget is kind of tight.
My plan is to get a BS first then MS from GT as quickly and affordable as possible so I have already completed about 40 credits from Sophia and SDC, most of which are CS related and want to transfer my associate's into bachelor's to make the best use of the transfer policy. I'm currently enrolled in Excelsior and Charter Oak, but Excelsior only admitted half of my credits, is there any pathway that could follow or other college that matches my preferences? Thank you so much!

Your Location: Shanghai - China
Your Age: 26
What kind of degree do you want?: Bachelors, Computer Science
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 0
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: 40
Any certifications or military experience?: No
Budget: Below 10 thousand USD
Commitments: Work full time - but remote
Dedicated time to study:  I can study as long as my work is finished
Timeline: Complete BSc within 9 mo
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None that I know of

[bjcheung77]

Welcome to the board, what's CUC in China? Not everyone knows, is it Communications University of China? Anyways, what classes are you enrolled in at Charter Oak and Excelsior? I'm not sure what classes you have that are transferable as you've not listed them. Your best option so far is, the other 'big 3' that you've not enrolled in! TESU BACS, I would do a double degree since you have an AA in Public Management, most of the classes should go towards the BSBA, thus a BACS/BSBA would be a good option for you.

[Avidreader]

Would a foreigner be able to jump the hoops and sign up for the free TEEX cybersecurity courses?
Saylor also offers ACE reccomended computer and business courses if money is tight.
And of course Google certs can knock tons of credits without spending a fortune. The IBM course had just gotten renewed, don't know how expensive it is.

If the OP speaks fluent Mandarin, they should spend 165 USD for a speaking ACTFL exam and nab those easy 12 credits where 6 credits are UL. Exam takes only around an hour.

Other options are the free computer programming MOOCs offered at Helsinki university that can be done in a few hours. Since the OP already has a foreign degree, they could accrue Helsinki university credits and have WES or Scholaro evaluate them together instead of separately to save more money.

[wow]

Would a foreigner be able to jump the hoops and sign up for the free TEEX cybersecurity courses?
Saylor also offers ACE reccomended computer and business courses if money is tight.
And of course Google certs can knock tons of credits without spending a fortune. The IBM course had just gotten renewed, don't know how expensive it is.

If the OP speaks fluent Mandarin, they should spend 165 USD for a speaking ACTFL exam and nab those easy 12 credits where 6 credits are UL. Exam takes only around an hour.

Other options are the free computer programming MOOCs offered at Helsinki university that can be done in a few hours. Since the OP already has a foreign degree, they could accrue Helsinki university credits and have WES or Scholaro evaluate them together instead of separately to save more money.

I think you have to be Finnish or live in the EU to get credit for Finnish MOOCs now, don't you?

[Avidreader]

Would a foreigner be able to jump the hoops and sign up for the free TEEX cybersecurity courses?
Saylor also offers ACE reccomended computer and business courses if money is tight.
And of course Google certs can knock tons of credits without spending a fortune. The IBM course had just gotten renewed, don't know how expensive it is.

If the OP speaks fluent Mandarin, they should spend 165 USD for a speaking ACTFL exam and nab those easy 12 credits where 6 credits are UL. Exam takes only around an hour.

Other options are the free computer programming MOOCs offered at Helsinki university that can be done in a few hours. Since the OP already has a foreign degree, they could accrue Helsinki university credits and have WES or Scholaro evaluate them together instead of separately to save more money.

I think you have to be Finnish or live in the EU to get credit for Finnish MOOCs now, don't you?

I haven't signed up for new Helsinki courses right now because I am doing other courses, so I can't 100% confirm. But I logged into my mooc account and it seems to still work. I'd give the health course a shot, it can be done in only 1 hour and see if the university lets you obtain etcs from it. Here's the mooc course list. The cat and dog moocs were real fun, both of those 2 courses are free to do but they charge 45 euros for the cat and 75 for the dog course to get the etcs.

https://www.mooc.fi/en/

To fully unlock the Helsinki university account, it is a bit of a hassle because it wants a passport with an embedded chip and there can't be any reflection from the passport when scanning it. Took me over 20 times for the app to accept it but tech support unlocked my account a few days later and let me register other courses.

[tak916]

Welcome to the board, what's CUC in China? Not everyone knows, is it Communications University of China?  Anyways, what classes are you enrolled in at Charter Oak and Excelsior?  I'm not sure what classes you have that are transferable as you've not listed them.  Your best option so far is, the other 'big 3' that you've not enrolled in!  TESU BACS, I would do a double degree since you have an AA in Public Management, most of the classes should go towards the BSBA, thus a BACS/BSBA would be a good option for you.

Yes, it is Comm Uni of China and I've completed Discrete Maths, Software Eng and Data Structure from SDC and Intro to IT,Python,Web Dev, Database,Java, Caculus I, Stats, Algreba, Eng Composition I on Sophia, thanks!

---

Would a foreigner be able to jump the hoops and sign up for the free TEEX cybersecurity courses?
Saylor also offers ACE reccomended computer and business courses if money is tight.
And of course Google certs can knock tons of credits without spending a fortune. The IBM course had just gotten renewed, don't know how expensive it is.

If the OP speaks fluent Mandarin, they should spend 165 USD for a speaking ACTFL exam and nab those easy 12 credits where 6 credits are UL. Exam takes only around an hour.

Other options are the free computer programming MOOCs offered at Helsinki university that can be done in a few hours. Since the OP already has a foreign degree, they could accrue Helsinki university credits and have WES or Scholaro evaluate them together instead of separately to save more money.

Thank you so much! I've browsed ACTFL's site, and I'm not sure whether I should take the OPI or placement, would you give me a link to the page? Thanks!

[Avidreader]

You don't need to take placement exams, you might be looking at ones aimed at teachers. Below is the link for the computer generated spoken Mandarin exam. They don't offer Shanghainese, but there is a Cantonese exam. You just create an account with the same email you use for your sophia credly badges, schedule an exam and the computer avatar starts asking you random questions to talk about such as your hobbies or something you don't like such as traffic or noise. They assess your speaking skill and send you your score a few days later on the account that can be sent to credly. If you could get an associates degree in Mandarin, you will certainly score high enough to get the 12 credits. Just sign up as a student because the other option is for US teachers that need a certification.

https://www.languagetesting.com/lti/prod...ent_id/228?

[tak916]

You don't need to take placement exams, you might be looking at ones aimed at teachers. Below is the link for the computer generated spoken Mandarin exam. They don't offer Shanghainese, but there is a Cantonese exam. You just create an account with the same email you use for your sophia credly badges, schedule an exam and the computer avatar starts asking you random questions to talk about such as your hobbies or something you don't like such as traffic or noise. They assess your speaking skill and send you your score a few days later on the account that can be sent to credly. If you could get an associates degree in Mandarin, you will certainly score high enough to get the 12 credits. Just sign up as a student because the other option is for US teachers that need a certification.

https://www.languagetesting.com/lti/prod...ent_id/228?

Oops... I registered for a WPT for students, I don't know if that counts

[Avidreader]

You don't need to take placement exams, you might be looking at ones aimed at teachers. Below is the link for the computer generated spoken Mandarin exam. They don't offer Shanghainese, but there is a Cantonese exam. You just create an account with the same email you use for your sophia credly badges, schedule an exam and the computer avatar starts asking you random questions to talk about such as your hobbies or something you don't like such as traffic or noise. They assess your speaking skill and send you your score a few days later on the account that can be sent to credly. If you could get an associates degree in Mandarin, you will certainly score high enough to get the 12 credits. Just sign up as a student because the other option is for US teachers that need a certification.

https://www.languagetesting.com/lti/prod...ent_id/228?

Oops... I registered for a WPT for students, I don't know if that counts

That is the writing test, the good news is that exam is also worth up to 12 credits. I never attempted the writing or listening exams because the Speaking exam gave me more than enough credits. I will assume you will have around 10 scenarios and you will have to write them down within a time limit. It will probably involve typing into a keyboard.

https://www.acenet.edu/National-Guide/Pa...0d3a363879

[Avidreader]

Giving a bit of an update here. I just finished the brand new Sustainablity in Space MOOC from Helsinki and the university let me register the course with zero issue. The updated transcript should be sent to me within a few days. At least for the time being, the Helsinki MOOCS are still fully available to foreigners.