Online Courses for College

[MacroGuru]

Let me preface this by saying, I am attending the University of Phoenix.

I am at the point, I do not have the time to go to a physical classroom anymore, I would prefer to take my courses online, and get them done while I work with our India office late at night.

To this point, I have been working towards my Business Info Systems degree, now I can keep going to the University of Phoenix, however, it is around 1600 a class, which to me, is highway robbery.

Looking at BYU and their online degree, I can only get my Bachelors in General Studies, which I honestly, do not want to do, but the prestige of graduating from there and moving on to their MBA program is pushing me in that direction.

However, I am looking to check all avenues out. Does anyone know of any accredited institutions that offer online courses, and may accept my University of Phoenix credits as transfers, to where I can pursue a degree beyond General studies?

And yes, I know, for only $50 I can get my Phd degree from Tazmanian University...:D

[oliegirl]

When you say it's $1600 a class for University of Phoenix...is that their online program? I took classes through their online program and I don't think it was near that much.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread myself. I'm curious about what is/isn't available strictly online as well.

I've got a couple of years worth of college credit that I kinda hate to waste & have toyed with the idea of finishing up the degree just for the hell of it as much as anything else. But there's about a zero percent chance I'll do it if there's brick-and-mortar time required.

[MacroGuru]

When you say it's $1600 a class for University of Phoenix...is that their online program? I took classes through their online program and I don't think it was near that much.
The tuition has gone up.

They raised it $300 in Sept if I remember correctly. And it was another $300 previous to that, and from what I was told, they were around $200 more than traditonal courses, which would move it around $1100 and the $300, and then another $60 for resource fees, it's around $1500...So I am off by about $100...but still....not when I can go to a BYU online course for $400 or U of U for the same price as a classroom course.

[CraigSca]

I go to Thomas Edison State College - www.tesc.edu (http://www.tesc.edu) - It's accredited by the Mid-Atlantic States Something-er-other - the same place the accredits the rest of the colleges/universities in this region.

The costs were about $2k upfront and then $500 per course. I guess it depends on how many you plan to take a semester. One nice thing is a new 12-week session starts every month, so the scheduling is really accomodating.

I took my first two courses and just finished up a week ago. I'm finding it very hard to keep up with the work, however, and maintain a fulltime job. In Feb I'm scaling back to one course every 12 weeks as opposed to 2.

Something I just noticed that sucks is that the really high-end courses (the 400's) are NOT offered online. I don't know how I'm going to find the time to go to a real class while still going to work (which requires a great deal of travel).

[MacroGuru]

I go to Thomas Edison State College - www.tesc.edu (http://www.tesc.edu/) - It's accredited by the Mid-Atlantic States Something-er-other - the same place the accredits the rest of the colleges/universities in this region.

The costs were about $2k upfront and then $500 per course. I guess it depends on how many you plan to take a semester. One nice thing is a new 12-week session starts every month, so the scheduling is really accomodating.

I took my first two courses and just finished up a week ago. I'm finding it very hard to keep up with the work, however, and maintain a fulltime job. In Feb I'm scaling back to one course every 12 weeks as opposed to 2.

Something I just noticed that sucks is that the really high-end courses (the 400's) are NOT offered online. I don't know how I'm going to find the time to go to a real class while still going to work (which requires a great deal of travel).
See, the 2000 upfront covers what? I don't mind the $500 per course, but what is the $2000 covering?

and I am in the same boat as you, I just do not have the time, running an IT Staff at a growing company has become tougher than I thought it would.

How do you find your classes at tesc? Are they knowlegable, are you actually learning something? Or just jumping through hoops?

[AgustusM]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580084311/qid=1135135498/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-4941474-3976066?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Get this book and read it cover to cover - John Bear is THE expert on non-traditional degrees and has been covering the topic for over 20 years. Great information in here.

Also - they partner with this website on the same topic: http://www.degreeinfo.com/

One final note on the original post - as a manager, director and now business owner I have done a lot of hiring in my life and the fact of the matter, like it or not when the average person in charge of sorting resumes looks through them BYU is going to always carry a lot more clout the the University of Phoenix. That may not be right, fair or accurate or whatever, but it is the truth.

[JonInMiddleGA]

AgustusM - What a great looking pair of resources, thanks very much for posting those.

[Dutch]

One final note on the original post - as a manager, director and now business owner I have done a lot of hiring in my life and the fact of the matter, like it or not when the average person in charge of sorting resumes looks through them BYU is going to always carry a lot more clout the the University of Phoenix. That may not be right, fair or accurate or whatever, but it is the truth.

True, but it's a matter of perspective. The University of Pheonix is gonna carry a lot more clout than Salt Lake City High.

[MacroGuru]

True, but it's a matter of perspective. The University of Pheonix is gonna carry a lot more clout than Salt Lake City High.
Or where I have my associates from....Provo College.

Just found out, BYU won't accept my credits from either school unless I have my Bachelors, so that is now officially out the door...it looks like I might be finsihing up my Bachelors at Univeristy of Phoenix, and enrolling in the MBA at BYU...

[CraigSca]

See, the 2000 upfront covers what? I don't mind the $500 per course, but what is the $2000 covering?

and I am in the same boat as you, I just do not have the time, running an IT Staff at a growing company has become tougher than I thought it would.

How do you find your classes at tesc? Are they knowlegable, are you actually learning something? Or just jumping through hoops?
So far all I've taken is Discrete Math and Statistics. Statistics I found to be an absolute breeze, but I have found that a great number of people are having issues with the class. I've been averaging about 90% on the assignments and I see the class average on the last two assignments running in the 50's. This makes sense, however, because I'm taking Computer Science while a number of the other students are strictly liberal arts (Psych majors, for example), so they don't have the math background I have.

Discrete Math has been a lot more difficult. HOWEVER - and we'll see how this ends because the class isn't finished yet (well, the class is, but I haven't received my final grades yet). The last couple assignments in DM I've received a 95% and a 100%. Ok...I was shocked with the 95% - I didn't think I did well...but mentor (professor) knows best, right? The last assignment I got a 100%. This made absolutely no sense to me - I didn't even solve the recurrence relation, nor did I show how to make an AND gate using a series of NAND gates like the assigment asked. I then looked at the class average for the assignment and it's 100%. Mind you, there are only 5 people in the class - but 100%?! This material is difficult, there's NO WAY everyone got 100%. So...a part of me is saying "hurray", but a majority of me is saying, "you know what - I deserve a C in this course, and if I get a B+ or an A I'm going to be feel cheated and disappointed".

I still have to turn in my course evaluations for both. So far, I'm torn. The Statistics mentor has been slow in grading our material, but at least if you screw up in the class the grades reflect it. Discrete Math is another story. I worked by butt off to earn a "C" - if everyone in there gets a B+ or an A I'll be miffed. I don't want to just send my check in and get a free ride.

I know online colleges have nowhere near the reputation that a typical college has in society. Really, that's fine with me. I'm not really doing this for more $$$ or anything, I'm doing this for myself. I screwed up bigtime when I was younger and it's always haunted my sense of self that I did so. If all I need to do is send my check in and I get a degree, I'll feel really cheated and I'll be looking elsewhere.

Hopefully I'll get my final grades soon and then I'll give Data Structures a shot in Feb and see how that goes.

[Galaril]

I would try the University of Nova Southeastern I got my master of scince degree there online (mostly) in Information Security. The education curriculum for at least that program was excellent as well as the faculty. I would highly recommend it.

[Dutch]

Assuming I am still going to Germany next summer, I plan on transferring all my credit hours to the University of Maryland and will be looking to subsidize from time to time with on-line classes. I'll prefer classroom study vs. trying to learn at home, but if I need to, I'll want classes that I can transfer to U of M....or I may just make use of UofM's distance learning program if applicable.

[AgustusM]

If all I need to do is send my check in and I get a degree, I'll feel really cheated and I'll be looking elsewhere.



Just an FYI the Bear book and website are NOT a send in a check, receive a diploma deal - In fact he has a whole other book about diploma mills and starts his books off with warnings about them and the bad things that happen when people use them and then try and pass them off as real.

the Bear books are about how to achieve a fully accredited real degree in the digital age. Their are countless programs out there as colleges are starting to realize the potential income (we can't forget colleges are businesses after all) to be made from the non-traditional student.

I myself went to college straight out of HS on football scholarship, got injured - made a stupid irrational decision of someone who was young and stupid and thought he knew too much - went to JC earned another football scholarship and then get hurt AGAIN this time permanently injuring my knee. made ANOTHER irrational immature decision to drop out and get a job and only ten years later wised up enough to go back and earn my degree. In the end I received my degree from USF - but took courses at probably over ten different colleges - the Bear books were in valuable in helping me achieve a REAL degree, that in the end I don't need since I started my own business -but did help in my previous job searches and in my overall self worth.

I cannot overemphasize enough - do some research to find the way to get the best degree you can spending the least amount of time and money - the time and money you spend in doing the research will pay itself back tenfold.

[MacroGuru]

Bear has a new book coming out on the 28th of December, I just used my Barnes And Noble Gift Card from my secret santa to pre-order it.

[CraigSca]

Well, I got my grades back from my finals. I got a 93 on both the Stats final and the Discrete Math one. Stats I knew I did well - though I haven't received my official grade for the course, adding up the numbers I can see I qualify for an A.

I received the official envelope with my Discrete Math grade in it yesterday and the 93 on the final gave me an A for the course (which, of course, heightened my concern - see my posts above). However, I contacted another student in the class that I had been conversing with and he told me he got his exam back as well - he got a D on the exam and a C+ on the course. If anything, hearing this calmed my fears. I was concerned that everyone in the class was going to walk away with an A but that's obviously not the case.

On to Data Structures in February...