Degree Plan Advice - Can I finish in a year? Without starving to death?

[SolarKat]

I was saying that the OP should take the cheap Intro to Stats course while still deciding whether or not to do the BSBA or the BA in DA. For the DA degree, you need to take the course from Statistics.com, but I would wait to pay $500 until he/she knew for sure that that's what they wanted to major in.

Actually, you *can* transfer it into the DA degree. (For the Stats.com certificate they'll transfer in up to 3 classes. For TESU, you can transfer in any intro stats, too, or even take the pricey TESU class instead of Stats.com.) If time is a factor, then Saylor or any other cheap option is fine to transfer in. My point is that if data science is even on the horizon, and time is a factor, killing 2 birds (the software skills and the stats credits) with Statistics.com seems to make more sense than time on an outside course just for the credits, and then time repeating the material independently to learn the stats software. (You see Excel and Excel-based packages throughout a number of classes in the degree, as well as R in the electives.) If money is tight, then it would probably be worth the time sacrifice to do the Saylor credits/noncredit practice with software. Otherwise, I agree with doing all the other stuff and waiting for the final 33 credits (that's the # of credits for the DA/DS AOS) to decide on which stats (quickie plain vs. software-based longer/pricier) makes sense.