BYU and LSU for Excelsior CIS Component

I just enrolled in Excelsior and I'm waiting for my community college transcripts to be received and evaluated.

I plan to complete the 15 credits of the Applied Professional elective area by using Microsoft, Comptia, Cisco and Novell certifications and complete the Discrete Math and statistics requirements at a local community college during the fall semester.

I'm looking for ways to quickly complete the 45 credit Computer Information Systems component and used the DistanceLearn database search on Excelsior's web site, but it doesn't seem complete. Many course searches yield results that point back only to Excelsior's own $720 web courses.

BYU and LSU seem like good places to look for lower cost courses that can be completed rapidly, but I don't know which courses meet requirements, so can someone recommend lower cost distance courses there that meet requirements for the CIS component?

 

You can take the lower division (100-200 level) courses at your local community college. That would be the cheapest route. Check out the public state universities in your state for the upper division (300-400 level) courses.

I don't know that much about LSU's offerings, but BYU has one of the most complete listings of independent study courses anywhere. I colleague of mine received his BA from Excelsior, based entirely upon testing and coursework from BYU, so you should have no trouble with the transfer units. After he completed his Excelsior BA, he was accepted into a masters at BYU and later into a PhD at the University of Utah.

Tony

 

I looked at the purple Excelsior catalog for the Excelsior Technology degrees that was mailed to me a few days ago and I don't see statistics listed as a requirement for BS CIS. I only see discrete math OR calculus. I remember seeing both discrete math and statistics as requirements when Excelsior used to have the requirement listed on their web site. Hopefully this is correct.
If I don't need statistics, that will be one less class to take.

I don't think I will be able to take any upper division courses at the local Cal State college due to the amount of red tape it would take to get admitted and enroll in a course. It would be impossible to enroll by this fall and difficult for even next spring, so BYU or LSU online may be a better bet for the 15 units of upper level coursework required if I am to complete everything in less than 1 year.

I may be able to enroll in the 30 units (over 2 semesters) of lower division CIS requirements plus discrete math, plus ethics (18 units a semester) at a local community college assuming the right courses are offered, the classes are not full and there are no scheduling conflicts. Otherwise, I will need to take at least some of the lower division courses online also.