Best option for a fast Associate's in I.T. or something related? Total noob!

[allvia]

To clarify what rachel83az said here - no school 'requires' an AS or an AA for admission to a degree program, what she is saying is that many of those who will waive Gen Eds for an associates degree will only do so for an AS or AA (vs AAS). 

No, I did actually mean that there are a couple of schools that require an AS or an AA for admission. IIRC, there is at least one law school in California that does not accept an AAS, but will accept an AS or AA. I have also seen a handful of Bachelor's degree programs where an AS or AA is required for admission, but an AAS is not an acceptable substitute. This does not apply to TESU, UMPI, PUG, or any of the other schools that we discuss regularly here.

Waiving gen eds is a separate issue and doesn't apply to most schools these days either.

Are you talking about the CA Law Schools that don't require a bachelor? Any program that would require an associates in order to gain admissions into a bachelor program (or above) would be an outlier. And certainly wouldn't impact this particular OPs situation. As you're aware it is far more common the colleges look at each course (even if you have an associate degree) that waive Gen Eds, and would be very rare for a transfer student (or one advancing) to have completed a required associate degree prior (of any type, as possible with some CA law programs). The only other example I can think of is an ASN to BSN program (and that is due to RN licensing being required, not specifically the type of lower level degree awarded). Again, definitely not relevant to this OPs situation. The entire 'terminal degree' phrase can be misleading to many; my intention was in clearing that up - not in deepening the confusion with examples that wouldn't apply to this OP.