FEMA Courses and Mountain State University

I just spent the last few hours reading about the FEMA courses and their use as electives towards degree programs. I saw many threads referring to Frederick Community College charging $60/course for credit and the use of TESC's credit bank for the courses. Has anyone had any experience with the FEMA courses and Mountain State University? I wonder if MSU would take the FEMA courses after banking them with TESC?

Oh and for you guys in Law Enforcement I'm not sure if you heard of this company but here is some info.

http://www.thebackup.com/

The courses are FREE to Law Enforcement personnel but require a $6 dollar shipping fee.

They are also worth college credit through North Idaho College.

http://www.thebackup.com/credit2.html

Hope this helps...

 

I don't have any experience with Mountain State, but I am betting they will not be accepted unless transcripted through Frederick Community College. I have asked Excelsior and AMU/APU about tehir policies; both require FCC transcription. AMU/APU has pretty liberal transfer credit policies...if they won't accept them directly in transfer I think you migt be hard pressed to find a school that will...other than Thomas Edison that is.

Pug

 

I just spoke to an admissions adviser with Mountain State University. Apparently they will evaluate the FEMA courses using a program they have called the Matrix system. She said I did not need to have the courses transcripted. She said as long as I have a certificate to send to them it would suffice. She did say that they have already evaluated FEMA courses in the past so I'm obviously not the first person to try this. Now it may be that they are evaluating them because I'm in the CJ program and these FEMA courses are emergency management related. She also said that not every credit transfers and that some require being lumped together to be evaluated as well. Hope this helps others considering this program. i'll update this thread when I see how many of them they take. If it works out Mountain State may have saved me around Two thousand dollars.

 

That's great news...please update once they evaluate.

 

Most definately. She said it would take 3-4 weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This would save me quite a few bucks if it works out.

 

Well I completed 25 of the FEMA courses in what I would consider record time (5-6 days). I did this while working my full time job as well. I did a few of the tests at work and a few at home each night. A word of advice that makes the whole process a lot easier. Ctrl+F is your friend. It makes it very easy to find the answers for the final exam. Interestingly enough I learned all of the material while doing it. I'm faxing the courses off today and hopefully in a few weeks I'll report how many credits MSU takes. I'll ask them for a list of the ones they take and what areas they apply them to and I'll post them here.

 

I think I blew through about 30 courses in two weeks. Like you, I was surprised at how much I actually retained! Again, please keep us posted as to MSU decisions.

FYI - Bellevue accepted my FEMA credits in transfer from TESC.

Pug

 

The reason it was pretty easy for me is that if you open up the complete training pdf's you can use Ctrl+F to search for keywords relating to the final examination questions. It makes the process really easy and since you actually still have to read you retain the information as well. Win/Win in my book.

 

Refer to this thread for a breakdown of how many hours MSU applied toward a degree program....and also go give me some advice!


http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?t=27937

 

From all of the issues I have seen here recently with Excelsior and FEMA credit only being granted through FCC, not TESC and your post noting Bellvue accepting the TESC - it appears to me as if Excelsior is cutting their nose off to spite their face. They are missing out on a hugh pool of motivated people who will not want to deal with the headache.

 

Do you think they would let you take the class if your not in law enforcement?

http://www.thebackup.com/

 

Unfortunately they only allow law enforcement to take these courses. I guess it's for security reasons.

 

Being sworn law enforcement, military, or corrections personnel who act in a law enforcement capacity is needed to take TheBackup.com courses. I have complete all of them and turned them into college credit at North Idaho College and then transfered them to Excelsior. The courses do end up with a letter grade and not just pass/fail. These added military to those who could take the course after I approached them about Military Police taking the courses. Gave me 17 semester hours.

 

Awesome man. I've completed enough for 9 hours so far. I'm hoping to finish the rest and have them transcripted as well. If you don't mind me asking, where did excelsior apply them toward? Also how did they give it an actual grade and were your grades A's?

 

TheBackup.com transcript goes to North Idaho College with the grade of "A" if you pass a cd-rom course.

Exceslior
Course....................................................Grade.... Applied Professional
2005/FA LAWE*230 LAW ENFORCE
PROFESSIONALISM........ A 2.00
2006/SP LAWE*231 OFFCIER SURVIVAL ....... A 3.00
2006/FA LAWE*232 CAREER ENHANCEMENT... A 3.00
2006/FA LAWE*233 INITIAL INVESTIGATIONS. A 3.00
2006/FA LAWE*234 DRUG INVESTIGATIONS .. A 3.00
2006/FA LAWE*236 TERRORISM ................. A 2.00
2006/FA LAWE*237 USE OF FORCE ............. A 1.00

 

Ahhh....well you just opened a can of worms for me. I wonder what other universities and colleges would take this as a transfer of a letter grade. That sure could boost someones GPA.

 

TESC records letter grades on its transcripts if that is how the transferred course is received by them. FEMA courses are not recorded with a grade, ACE courses are not recorded with a grade, etc. Courses that I transferred to TESC from other schools were all recorded with the letter grades.

Pug

 

If that's the case then I am going to try and finish all 17 hours. That would be 7 A's plus the 2 A's and a B from LSU. That means I start out with a 3.9 GPA at TESC. Let me ask you this Pug. When you transfer into Bellevue does your GPA come with you?

 

No, it won't, nor will it anywhere else that I can think of off the top of my head. I think Excelsior used to but I am not sure.

Pug

 

Man that sucks. It would be nice to be able to transfer a pretty high GPA like that. Ah well I guess we can't have it all.