A degree plan for someone that has no idea what major or college they want?

[LevelUP]

Personally, I think that person would be better off working or getting other life experience to help them decide what they want to do. Taking GenEds aren't likely to help that much, and without a concrete goal, maintaining motivation to take courses will be a challenge.

There are plenty of students who come here with "life experience" and who still aren't sure what degree they want/need. I'm not sure if there is a good, generic, answer to give them.

I would agree there is no clear answer, and it might depend on each situation.

I really like the concept of a generic plan, maybe including courses that are common to the most recommended degrees? A tabular format similar to the Sophia.org Equivalency List could work. The free portion of Sophia is a clever idea to get exposure to the possibilities, although I would lean toward Modern States to start, given that it's free and CLEP is accepted at the broadest range of schools. A couple more to consider would be TADA and Saylor.

A Sophia-like equivalency list sounds like a great idea.

TADA is free so definitely that's a good place to start as well.

I have been mostly telling it people to start with Modern States as well and generally direct them towards English and math to start. I don't necessarily think a general degree is bad because there's just so many jobs now that do require just checking the box. It's nice to know what you want but sometimes people also want things that aren't readily available from many schools.

One thing to keep in mind is that every school has their own very of gen eds. There's a complete lack of consistency across the nation. Some schools will only accept CLEP or AP. Some are very selective in those as well. Some schools have time limits. I've been to a few schools who required your English and math classes to be within the last 5 years. I'm not sure what has changed in English in the last 5 years. Maybe so you might remember how to write a paper? Because you can't google that. /sarcasm. 

With the list above, I wouldn't take Visual Communications. You're better off with macro and micro econ.

Agree English is a good place to start since writing is a big part of college. 

A lot of schools do only accept APs or CLEP's so generally, if someone is, for example, thinking of going to a flagship school in their state, then only doing APs and CLEPs is a good idea.

Took out Visual Communications and added Micro/Micro

There are so many variables in play, it really depends on their age and if they're still in high school or a few years out of high school... for those still in high school, most recommended would be dual enrollment instead of the ACE we usually use.  For max transfer, AP, CLEP, dual enrollment for courses that don't have AP/CLEP... up to 90 credits can be done before they graduate.

For those who have already graduated, it's best for them to complete the template/addendum so we'll know their situation and advise accordingly.  I usually advise a mix/match of certs, degree, experience, the prospective student may have number of certs or a number of years experience in a field already, without knowing that, it's hard to provide a generic answer/degree to fit each person.

If they are on the forum and at least settled with the idea of doing one of the recommended online degrees but are not sure of which school or major, then they could do alt credits such as Sophia to dip their toes in the water. Otherwise, they could do CLEP's or try some certs, etc.

Most schools require more GE than you listed, so I'd add the following:

[*]Public Speaking
[*]Spanish I
[*]Intro to Statistics
[*]Intro to Sociology
[*]Human Biology
[*]Intro to Psych
[*]Macroecon or Microecon
[*]Personal Finance (not for GE, but just because it's important)

I'd probably also say that some Business courses wouldn't be a bad idea


[*]Intro to Business
[*]Principles of Management
[*]Financial Accounting

[*]

Added business path and other suggestions.