Hello! I am new here...just read the BAin4Weeks.com site. I knew I could test out of courses (did to get out of HS early) but I didn't know there were colleges that accepted complete degree requirements by examination. My question is: For the moment, I just need a degree. Any degree will do. I am about to have a baby and will be a stay-at-home mom. The only catch is: I must have a degree just in case something were to happen that would cause me to need to work outside of the home. A safety net so-to-speak. I really would love to take my time and get a meaningful degree in something that I love but I feel that, for the moment, I just need to get a degree under my belt. Then, after I have it, I can relax. I hope no-one thinks I'm shallow. I'm not afraid of hard work. In fact, that's why I graduated early from high school: to get to college faster. Of course, life gets in the way. I want to do it for practical purposes first. After that, for fulfillment. Any suggestions regarding the Easiest (read: quickest)/Cheapest degree are very welcome. All my love, Eirie
Whoa, there is a lot of missing information..... What do you want a degree in? What would you do with it? How do you want to study? Delivery methods, processes, etc. How else do you want to earn credit? How much do you want or can you spend? Why the hurry if you don't have a pending need? Asking for assistance is great, and I'm sure you'll get lots of help. But it would streamline things if you let readers know what you actually need. Finally, "easiest" is a relative term. It would be better to express it in terms of what you want to study and how.
If you do not have any college credits then the three that bain4weeks talks about would most likely be your best bet. Fort Hayes has low tuition. Mountain State is not bad on price and accepts a lot of exams. Your best bet may be community colleges where you live. They usually have the lowest tuition, and may allow credits by exams such as clep, dsst, or ece. Sometimes CC's will let you challenge a course credit by examination that does not have standard exams which may help you out also. Good Luck!
Hi Eirie, First of all, congratulations on the upcoming baby... The trick with approaches such as BAin4Weeks is that you're basically "testing" out of degrees based largely upon prior knowledge, so it's obviously easier if you already know the material. While I don't dispute Lawrie's efforts, nor do I doubt that it is indeed possible for people to get a degree in 4 weeks, everything has to line up with respect to prior knowledge and a test schedule. You don't mention when your due date is, which would largely determine (assuming no complications) how much time you have to work with. Also, if you live far from testing centers it means a lot of travel to/from sites to write exams. No matter what degree you seek, I would highly suggest that you incorporate items of interest. I just finished my last exam a couple of weeks ago, my 35th in a year (I took 2 months off between Oct and Dec because of a family loss). It would have been really tough if I hadn't taken some exams that interested me. I'd say that if you have 6 months, about $5000 to spend (tuition, books, exam fees) and the dedication to apply yourself you could do it. My caveat is that you don't want to unnecessarily stress yourself out about it - if you're a couple of credits short before you give birth you can always pick it up when your baby is old enough to not require around-the-clock attention (or if a helpful family member can assist). There are two schools I'd look at - Excelsior and Charter Oak State College (COSC). For Excelsior, take a look at a Liberal Arts degree (register online at www.excelsior.edu and go to the Publications Request and download the PDF. Make sure you also download the "A Student Guide to Credit by Exam at EC..." document. Two areas of study you may want to look at are Literature in English and the Liberal Studies option. At COSC www.cosc.edu, there are no majors, just concentrations. You may want to look at Individualized Studies, Liberal Studies or Literature. You can take the Literature in English Subject GRE, which is next offered in April (need to register by 2/25). This is not trivial - take a look at http://www.gre.org/subdesc.html#litinenglish. Hopefully you enjoy literature. If Psychology is more your thing there is a GRE for that as well. Here's the reason I suggest these exams: Excelsior will give you 30 credits if you score in the 80th percentile or above, and COSC will give you 18 credits if you score above the 40th percentile. Also, it's cheap ($130) and you can get a lot of the books from the library or purchase them used. (it may be that cost is no barrier, but I'm assuming that with upcoming baby expenses it can't hurt to minimize the cost of college) Plus, you could take CLEP and DANTES exams that would apply to either college prior to your GRE exam, and then based on your score sign up to one of the programs. Theoretically you could take both English Lit and Psychology GREs, do a combined program and meet most if not all of your concentration requirements with these two exams. Also, if you know French, German or Spanish well enough don't overlook the CLEPs - an easy 12 credits. A final thought - maybe go for your Associates first, and get that out of the way prior to your baby's arrival. Then you can chip away at the rest over a longer period of time. It's definitely doable, but plan on spending most if not all your time over the next few months hitting the books if you don't already have this knowledge (i.e. just walk in and pass 2-3 exams per day). Best of luck to you! Cheers, Mark
Oh, okay, sorry. I told you I'm new . Well, I am very well read, an accomplished musician and fairly good at Maths. I suppose something along the lines of Liberal Arts wouldn't hurt. That's, of course, my preferred degree. I am willing to do any degree at first if it will allow me to join a particular job field fairly quickly. Meaning: if I had a liberal arts degree, it's so "generalized" that it's very possible I would require quite a bit of training before starting a career. If I had something more specific say, accounting, business administration, etc., I would be able to more quickly jump into the job market. Atleast, this is what I believe. I've never assumed I know everything. I'm still young. I do pride myself on learning quickly and being an excellent test-taker. As I mentioned before: I graduated HS a year early just by taking examinations. I took 5 exams in one week and graduated with a 4.2 on a 4 point scale. Sorry, I'm just very proud of that accomplishment, not trying to gloat. That being said, I would be thrilled if I could take as many examinations as possible in order to earn a degree. I learn best when I teach myself. I research subjects as a hobby for goodness sake! I just love learning about new things. So, regarding study methods, I'd be contented to go to the library or surf the web and be able to pick and choose my study materials based on exam outlines. As far as money goes, I think $4,000 is my cap for now. The good thing is that, as you can't take every test at once, you don't have to pay for them at once. If I find myself broke, well, I'll just have to wait until I take another test. I suppose I really should go further into the reason I'm in a hurry. My husband has a mental illness that has, in the past, created such problems that he has lost his job. As the nature of the illness is so unpredictable, we never know if/when it will come up again. We have also recently moved 2,000 miles away from family for his job which also creates the issue of, if he were to lose his job, what would I do without family and friends close by for support. So, even without the baby, I know I need a degree that will see us through the hard times that are almost inevitable. My definition of easiest: relatively simple exams and fairly affordable (doesn't require a lot of high-priced exams). If, in anyone's opinion, I could get by with just an AA or AS (I'm not sure as I have never worked in a field that required any sort of degree) I would be interested in learning which Associates would be good for my purposes. Basically, I'm looking for advice and I really am happy with anything. I'll continue to study the subject on my own as well as rely on the intelligence and life experience of others. That's why I love message boards! All my love, Eirie
This is good and sound advice. I just checked Itawamba Community College (FKA Itawamba Jr. College), where I studied during my freshman and sophomore years, and the tuition for online classes is $75 per credit hour. Now, if you're interested in a nationally accredited school rather than a regionally accredited one, you may wish to check into Ashworth College. You pay $5 down and about $40 per month for an associates. (Tell me the redhead on the upper left doesn't look like Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad from the '70's group ABBA.).
Hi Eierie, I think your best bet would be Charter Oak State in terms of flexibility, price, and quickness. I was able to obtain my BS degree from charter oak in just over 6 weeks. All of the exams are relatively easy for someone with an average to above avg. intelligence level. Also having a concentration/major in Business Administration would probably be more versatile when entering the job market versus psychology or liberal arts for example. Almost immediatly after receiving my degree i obtained a new job, that I wouldn't have been able to get if I didn't have the degree.
First, the fastest would be from Charter Oak or Excelsior. Thomas Edison also may be an option but there has been some horror stories about the customer service. I would recommend focusing on an AA or AS. The AA would allow you to have a greater number of general ed classes (45 credits) and a choice of electives (15 credits). You could test out, a I and many others have done, for an Associates or Bachelors degree. I am sure that would be the quickest and cheapest route. Assuming you would take that path: Start with the CLEP general exams, they are pretty easy. They do not go in depth but the information is broad so you would need to know a little about a lot. There are some really good study guides. Also, the general exams are worth 6 credits. Next, look at these websites which post the passing rates for exams taken by military personel. I looked at the exams with the highest passing rates and just took them without studying. I was able to pass 15 tests (51 credits) in 6 weeks. http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_web/examinations/dssts.htm http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_web/examinations/clepgeneral.htm http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_web/examinations/clepsubject.htm http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_web/examinations/ece2.htm To me, the DANTES tests seemed to be the easiest. Good luck.
Some new thoughts... Eirie, Based upon your updated responses I'm now recommending a slightly different approach. I would look at Excelsior's Associate in Science, Business degree as a starting point. I believe it will give you more "utility" than a liberal arts degree as some of the courses you would take could translate to entry into the job market. Of the 60 hours of the program, you need the following distributions. I've suggested what I believe are the cheapest and easiest (relatively, anyway) exams you could take to meet them: 33 Hrs Arts and Sciences 3 hours Written English (Excelsior ECE or TECEP English Comp I) 6 hours Humanities (CLEP General Humanities or CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature) 12 Hours Social Sciences/History (CLEP Macroeconomics, CLEP Microeconomics, CLEP Western Civilization I and II) 6 Hours Math and Sciences (CLEP College Algebra, DANTES Statistics) 6 Hours Remaining Arts and Sciences (CLEP Natural Science or one of the Humanities exams listed above) 21 Hrs Business Component CLEP Principles of Accounting (6 hours) CLEP Introductory Business Law (3 hours) CLEP Info Systems and Computer Applications (3 hours) OR DANTES Intro to Computing (3 hours) CLEP Principles of Management (3 hours) CLEP Principles of Marketing (3 hours) DANTES Principles of Supervision (3 hours) 6 Hrs Additional Credit Excelsior online Information Literacy Requirement (1 hour) DANTES Here's To Your Health (3 hours) CLEP Introductory Psychology OR Sociology (3 hours), or something else that you may enjoy. This will get you to an Associates degree quickly, and the nice thing is that every single one of the above exams can also be used towards an Excelsior BS in General Business. Many of the above exams are quite straightforward and easy if you're good at taking exams. If you don't have any Accounting, Economics or Statistics knowledge these will take a bit more time to learn but otherwise it should be pretty smooth sailing. DANTES Here's To Your Health and CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature are 2 of the easiest exams you can take. Before signing up, however, I recommend you look in your area for exam centers - For CLEP, look at www.collegeboard.com For DANTES, look at www.getcollegecredit.com For Excelsior College Exams (ECE), look at www.2test.com For Thomas Edison State College exams (TECEP) you will need to find a proctor who will administer the exam for you. Check out www.tesc.edu. The reason I mention the English Comp TECEP is that it is absurdly easy to take and pass. After finding local colleges that administer the above, give them a call to understand their schedule - sometimes exams are only given a few times per month, or they may have open seating (the best option if you have spare time). Also, for some reason DANTES testing centers seem to be out of whack with what's posted on their website - so if you don't see a center near you just start calling the Adult Learning centers of colleges and see if they will proctor an exam for you. Put together a spreadsheet or list of which exams you want to take, in what order, over what period of time, the cost, as well as where they will be taken. Then, start studying There are a lot of tips here on DegreeInfo, as well as specific exam tips on my site (link below). Hopefully by giving you a hand here I can help "pay it forward" - many helped me get started! Cheers, Mark
Hi Eirie I guess I am a little confused still. You are interested in recommendations for both fields of study and schools/degrees? I guess I find it rather difficult to recommend fields of study to people. I mean I can tell you what the forecasts are for hot jobs and what fields interest me the most, but I am not sure how helpful that would be. It also seems like the field of study really needs to come from you. It should either be something of great interest or in some cases a vocational choice that meshes well with your personality. In any event best wishes for a great 2005!
Eirie, [[ If you had a first degree, I might suggest, for practical purposes AND fulfillment: MMid Master of Midwifery / MMedSci Maternity Care If this is of interest, they do have undergrad courses as well, although whether online, you'd have to ask.]] Sorry, looking through the previous posts, I realize this may not be in your are of interest. Best wishes, Russell
