TESU BA CS Degree - Second degree, first degree from Canadian university

[ItsNeverTheLionsYear]

Hello everyone! I'm a new user here who stumbled onto this forum while looking into WGU & Fort Hays, and I've been soaking up old posts like a sponge. This forum is absolutely incredible. It seems like everyone here really knows their stuff - you've already set me straight on what I should be looking for without me even needing to post.

I'm hoping to answer some questions, at the very bottom of this tome I've written, to help me make sure I'm on the right track. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My background:  (skip to the next section header if you don't care)

The short version: Canadian BA, Poli Sci major, Statistics minor, taking community college courses to prepare for masters programs in CS, decided to pick up a bachelor's in CS along the way for job prospects while taking the masters.

I'm an American who went to a Canadian school for undergrad because it was cheaper than local state school at the time, the time being 5-10 years ago. I got a BA in Political Science with a minor in statistics, came back to the US, got an entry-level customer service job, and slowly worked my way into support roles for software companies. My job now gives me a nice fat yuppie paycheck and some hands-on coding experience, mostly SQL, but:

1. I do tons of unpaid overtime as is common for this type of job
   
2. They don't let me mess with the interesting stuff because I would break it
   

I've pretty much tapped out my responsibilities and paycheck in a support role without going into management, and I don't want to go into management, I don't have the temperament, good managers know when to shut up. Or I could get a CS degree. If I had a CS degree I could pivot into a "Support Engineer" role, and then from there into a standard software engineer role or something similar.

I started this process out by looking at CS Master's programs, specifically the MOOC-style ones at big universities, namely UIUC, GT, UT Austin, and Penn. After doing research on their websites, and Reddit, and emailing all of their admissions offices, I found that they all generally want graded courses from regionally accredited institutions in basically the same areas (if you want to know, these are Introductory programming, Object-Oriented Programming, Data Structures, Algorithms, Linear Algebra, Statistics/Probability, Discrete Math, Computer architecture, and C). I am foolish enough to take them at their word, and I also know that some people have had issues in the past with alt-credit working for grad school, so I decided to play it safe. Plus, I do think I'll learn more the way they're suggesting.

I had already taken linear algebra, statistics, and probability in Canada. That left just the more CS-y courses. I put together a plan that would have me take all of the requirements, plus some extra courses for improved job prospects, at a combination of Oakton CC online and a local community college. This plan (which I still intend on completing) spits me out with letter-graded courses for all of the masters' requirements, plus certificates in C++ and Java, by the 2024 winter holidays. From there, I'll take the GRE, apply to schools, get a masters, get a better job than I can get now, marry my girlfriend, raise a family, and eventually die surrounded by loved ones at an advanced age, followed by a crowded funeral.

However, I can't necessarily rely on this plan working out. Unexpected life events are very hard to plan for, plus the tech economy is looking sour for the moment. With that said, people are always desperate for support/service reps because the job objectively sucks, so that should provide me with a decent income until at least Spring 2025, I'd say. If could somehow turn community college credit into a CS bachelor's, I bet I'd have better job prospects sooner. I could probably pivot into a support engineer role pretty much as soon as I get the degree, then enroll in the masters, and then I could use the masters as a springboard into a specialized software area, where the problems are very interesting and the pay is arguably sinful. At least, that's my thinking.

I'm an amazing saver, I put away around half my paycheck every month, but I'm a horrible investor, so my savings are mostly liquid. I do make sure to keep fattening my emergency fund, but even then I figure over two years I can scrounge together $5-6k and put it towards a second BA, plus another $1k for unexpected education-related costs. (I've already accounted for other life costs, including the separate cost of community college courses, in making that calculation.) I do not qualify for a Pell grant, my employer doesn't sponsor tuition, and I don't want to go into debt, so it's paying out of pocket for me.

Why TESU?

TESU checks a lot of boxes for me:

• I can complete the program part-time while working
  
• It won't take me much longer than I'm already planning on to complete the program
  
• They'll transfer in lots credit from both a Canadian BA and community colleges
  
• Cost of getting the degree (not counting community college costs) is less than $7k
  
• From a public, regionally accredited school. Not being a for-profit is the most essential, but I also do like that it's a public school and not a private nonprofit school
  
• Doesn't run ads on TV - my worst and snobbiest criteria, but it sure is a criteria of mine
  

I've ruled out WGU because they won't transfer in my BA, which means I'd have to do a ton of gen eds on Sophia, and I don't want to do that. Plus, per their own transfer guides, they'd barely take any of my CC credit, and I'm not sure if I'm cut out to cram a bunch of Sophia, Saylor, and SDC tests in a short period, and then do 40 WGU credits in 6 months. And they advertise on TV. Excelsior and UMPI don't have CS majors, Fort Hays takes too much time and doesn't transfer credit in, Oregon State and ASU charge more than I'm willing to pay for tuition and don't transfer credit in, COSC is no longer a viable option for this sort of thing, PUGC seems like Kaplan U wearing a hat, so it's TESU.

The Plan:

The full plan is attached. The requirements based on my understanding, are:

• Because I'm a second degree student, or should be, most of the degree requirements, including the cornerstone, get waived
  
• Earn at least 24 credits that didn't count towards my previous BA
  
• Earn at least 18 upper-level credits (3 of those being the capstone)
  
• Earn at least 18 CS-related elective credits
  
• Earn at least 6 general science elective credits (unclear if they can also be CS-related or if they must NOT be CS-related)
  

I plan on transferring in the following ACE credits (sophia credits bolded):

• Calculus I (Sophia, Calc I)
  
• Operating Systems (SDC, CompSci 305 Operating Systems)
  
• Python Programming (Sophia, Intro to Python)
  
• System Analysis and Design I (SDC, CompSci 302 System Analysis and Design)
  
• Artificial Intelligence (SDC, CompSci 311 Artificial Intelligence)
  

My questions:

• I took Calc I as an AP class, AB calc, in high school. Do I have to take it again? I've written the plan assuming the answer is "yes, I do have to take it again".
  
• Is the minimum grade to transfer is a C, or something else? I did get some Cs, especially in Calculus classes.
  
• Have the Sophia credits bolded above transferred successfully for other students before? (For SDC I assume their partnership catalog is correct.)
  
• I understand that I can get some elective credit beyond the second degree Gen ed/general electives waivers for AoS-relevant courses. Is Calc III one of those courses? I've (somewhat riskily) added it to the plan assuming "yes, it is AoS-relevant".
  
• I'm confused about when I should apply. The wiki says that if you apply, you have to register for a course or a TECEP to be "active" and get more than two transcript evaluations, but then also that you don't get a refund for that TECEP if you cancel, and that you have to do this every year. Assuming I take my capstone in spring 2025, should I just wait until Fall/Winter 2024 to apply?
  
• Am I correctly understanding that students seeking a second bachelor's degree only three big ($100+) fees: The $3288 residency waiver, $1605 in tution, and the $298 graduation fee?
  

Additionally, I have a bunch of courses that I plan on taking from community colleges, and from my first BA, that don't currently figure into my TESU plan. In your non-advisorial, non-binding, layperson opinion, based purely on the names of these courses, do any of these look like they might transfer?

Community college courses:
CompSci 2XX (Advanced Java) - Local CC
CompSci 2XX (Web Programming) - Local CC
CSC 255 (Objects and Algorithms) - Oakton CC
CompSci 2XX (Objects in C++) - Local CC

First BA courses:
Math 2XX (Principles of Statistics I) 
Math 2XX (Principles of Statistics II)
Math 2XX (Statistical Programming)
Math 1XX (Calculus II)
Math 3XX (Probability)
Math 3XX (Statistics)
Math 4XX (Regression & ANOVA)

Thank you for reading this massive post all the way through, and thank you to everyone on this forum - this place does incredible work and you should all be proud of it.