I have several years of IT support experience and recently finished MCSE certification and plan to move on to higher level system administration and network administration soon, but no plans for further technical advancement after that. Long term goal is management, not technical. IT management in a few years and maybe upper management in a small business in the long term. I already have an associates degree in liberal arts from a community college and and don't want to go on to a CS, CIS or even an MIS degree because I don't want to get into the computer programming courses and they all seem to require at least a couple computer programming classes. Even though I know Excelsior would transfer many of my certifications to their CIS degree, I cannot stand computer programming courses, so it is not an option. I'm want to complete an undergraduate degree from an regionally accredited school with minimal math requirements and then an MBA from a distance program offered by a B&M state school with name recognition and reasonable costs. I am a California resident, so CSUDH is likely my first choice for the MBA unless there are other recommedations here. Any recommendations on where to complete an undergraduate degree meeting admission requirements to a regionally accredited MBA program, but requiring the least possible math (no math requirements in their undergraduate program higher than the minimum required for admission to the MBA program)? If there is a RA MBA program with fewer math requirements than the norm, then I would be interested in that also.
If you want a degree with no maths, you might want to look at some non-US ones. Australian and the UK, among others, do not have the general education requirements for their degrees and are much more specialised (it is assumed that the student's eduction in school is sufficient). Accredited degrees from Australia and the UK are considered as equivalent to RA and, but they universities may grant little, if any, advanced standing for the associate degree.
It doesn't need to be "zero math," but I need to at least avoid the most difficult and the most "prerequisite-requiring" math courses such as calculus, trigonometry or college algebra courses that assume prior knowledge of trigonometry. I don't remember much high school algebra and don't want to have to take several math prerequisites to get caught up before I even start taking the math courses that actually count toward the degree.
I'm not sure how you'd define "the norm", but for my Excelsior BS General Business I only required College Algebra and Statistics. To meet these requirements I took CLEP College Algebra and DANTES Statistics. Note that Stats is a pre-req for many MBA programs (including CSDUH), and even if it's not, you'll be taking it as part of the MBA coursework. I just completed my MBA Quantitative Analysis course at IU and if you didn't have undergrad Stats it'd have been more of a struggle. CLEP College Algebra isn't tough at all if you did reasonably well with math in high school - I had last taken it over 15 years ago and it only took a week or two to refresh myself. Stats is more of a challenge, but CSDUH only requires a "C". Excelsior would probably give you general ed credit (or business IT credit) for your MCSE, so you maximize the benefit of the learning you already did with your AS. My honest suggestion is to focus less on the math requirement and more on how you can completed your undergrad. Unless the program required calculus or other higher maths it's not something to get hung up on. Cheers, Mark
I am going to consider Heriot-Watt as a possible choice. Otherwise, would an Excelsior business or liberal arts degree would be the quickest way to complete a pre-MBA undergraduate degree meeting my needs? It would save a lot of time and money to skip an undergraduate degree by going straight to Heriot-Watt, but I have concerns about going to Heriot-Watt when I will be using the degree towards employment in the US.
Is there a reason why you're in an incredible rush? Note that H-W is a very credible option for your MBA but from what I've read on this forum it's pretty thorough - and you need to be very disciplined to complete it all via self-study. I only recommend Excelsior (or COSC or TESC) because you can leverage most of your existing credit, pass the remainder of your degree via examination and do it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Assuming your credits fit and you get credit with Excelsior for your MCSE, I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't get your BS done for under $3,000 including books (used) and exams. You could probably complete the requirements for the degree in a few months if you're near testing centers and can put forth a concerted effort. One advantage to this approach is that should something happen in your life to cause you to withdraw from H-W or if you become disenchanted with the program you have a fallback of a completed bachelor's and the ability to take your pick of US colleges. I'm not sure how H-W would play with respect to employment in the US - I'll let others who have completed their MBA there answer - but there is the potential for awkward discussion if during a job interview you're asked about your bachelor's when/if they ask about your educational history. However, like any case if you're the right candidate this is hardly a show-stopper. Cheers, Mark
I'm in Excelsior's BS IT program, and one thing I found interesting were the math options. Logic and Linear Programming aren't even necessarily within the Math department, and I think the same may sometimes be true for DSS. Discrete Mathematics Calculus I Calculus II Statistics Quantitative Methods Linear Programming Decision Support Systems Logic (from either a Philosophy or a Mathematics department) Haven't done any yet, but I'm thinking Logic and Statistics.
I'll check with Excelsior soon to see how far I'm away from a Liberal Studies or Business degree and compare it to other options.
Also I wanted to mention the BS in IT only requires one lower level programming course (Object Oriented Programming, the one offered via Excelsior is Java I believe).
I think I looked at that program before and the lower level programming course was a prerequisite to some upper level course requirement. I assume the upper level course would then involve additional programming.
Within the Network Concentration of the BS IT the Object-Orient Programming requirement is the only specific programming course. There is a Computer Architecture course that recommends you already have a programming course under your belt but it isn't a programming course, though it does include some assembly as part of the course it's not the focus, and I'd assume you could find a course at another school to fit the computer architecture requirement which didn't have assembly. I'm sure some of the concentrations had more programming in them, that's all the game development one really is.
