The official guide to courses from the Big Three: COSC, TESU, & Excelsior

[jsh1138]

Provider: TESU
Course: History 379 Historical Methods
Instructor: Patricia O'Neill
Course content: Mostly reading selections from the textbook and discussing them, or writing essays on them.
Final exam format: The final exam is a book review written by you on a book of your choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: It's not exactly covered in the previous material but you can do it if you've been keeping up
Time taken on course: Depends on how fast you read. Assuming you're a good reader, it's not alot of extra effort beyond reading the book you have to review.
Familiarity with subject before course: I was studying for a history degree so I was somewhat familiar. I was not familiar at all with reviewing books as a historian would.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: None beyond just making sure you turn in your assignments on time.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3ish. If you put in the time this is not a difficult course. I enjoyed it.

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Provider: TESU
Course: COS 116: C Programming
Instructor: Biswajit Panja
Course content: You get a fat textbook on C Programming and that's it. Everything you do comes out of that textbook directly
Final exam format: You have to write a series of programs using the textbook
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Basically every assignment is writing a program of some description, so that prepares you for the final
Time taken on course: None of the assignments are long, you can probably do them in an hour each I would imagine. Most of the assignments are something direct from the textbook but slightly modified so you have to do original work on it too
Familiarity with subject before course: I haven't taken a programming course in 20 years so I needed alot of work to get through this course. If you're familiar with C, it will be a breeze
1-10 Difficulty level: 5ish for me. The course itself is simple but I had to start from scratch

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Provider: TESU
Course: LIB 495: Liberal Arts Capstone
Instructor: Arlene Sinding
Course content: It depends on what your degree is going to be in. For me (History) I had to do original research and write a paper
Final exam format: For me it was a paper
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The course is structured so that you basically do a chunk of your final project every week, so by the end you just need to combine it and edit it. So your final exam is the same as your course work
Time taken on course: This class was extremely time consuming for me. I read probably 20 books outside of all the writing I did.
Familiarity with subject before course: I was familiar with history but knew nothing about my paper topic going in
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: 1) Keep your thesis question short with few sub-questions, 2) Do not write more than you have to. The requirement for the final is 25 pages, don't make it 100 pages because you're trying to write the greatest paper ever. Write to the course requirements and save yourself the trouble.
1-10 Difficulty level: 8. I let my thesis question get away from me and this course was a ton of work because of that. It didn't have to be though.

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Can I suggest that we not limit it to the Big 3 but instead just make it about online RA courses that can be transferred in? Because I know a lot of people would rather take a class for cheaper at, say, APU than one of the Big 3

Sure, it's fine by me if people want to throw WGU or whatever in there too. I was just saying Big Three bc that's what this forum is about. But go ahead, it won't hurt

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Provider: TESU
Course: BIO 310: Biology and Behavior of Dogs
Instructor: Ingrid Herrmann
Course content: Everything you do comes out of the textbook or through online research, aka googling
Final exam format: Your final project is to write a shortish paper on something to do with biology and behavior of dogs
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The course gives you enough to choose from that you can find a good topic
Time taken on course: Not a whole lot really. It's not super technical material
Familiarity with subject before course: I've had dogs my whole life and took this course because it sounded fun
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The tests tend to focus more on dog anatomy than you would think so you have to learn the names of all those body parts
1-10 Difficulty level: 2. This was a very easy course for UL Bio and I enjoyed it and felt like I learned alot.