I'm thinking about pursuing a BS in Liberal Studies at Excelsior College. I'm trying to figure out if I have any upper level art & science courses because you need 21 adv. credits. Will these count?: 1. Upper-level Geography - Grade D (will they not count it?) 2. Upper-level Management Info. Systems - Grade B 3. Upper-level International Studies - Grade A My next Q is about the Information Literacy course. Is there any course equivalent that can be taken at a uni? I've had BCIS (Business Computer Info. Systems)...does that count?
1. No. Excelsior accepts only a grade of C or better for credit. 2. Sorry, I am not sure if this is Arts & Sciences or applied professional. 3. Sounds like this should be considered Arts & Sciences. For the information literacy course, there is an equivalent at Penn Foster College for much less $$ (Oh, how I WISH I knew about his just 5 months ago!!!). The Business Computer Information Systems will not work for this requirement. In fact... Excelsior's Information Literacy requirement is so superficial that you are not likely to find an equivalent course at any other college anywhere. Without repeating the entire rant that I directed towards Excelsior in their end of course survey, there is hardly anything to this course at all. Basically, know the difference between a book and a magazine and you are WELL ahead of the course's content level. You should be able to pass the final without going through the course (although I do suggest that you go through it, since you would hate yourself if you failed and had to pay the $$ to take it again).
I have the Excelsior BSLS - it is probably the most flexible degree available - the 59 elective units allow you to use professional credits such as business, engineering, and criminal justice. There are several DSST tests that result in UD science/arts credit DSST - GetCollegeCredit.com But check with Excelsior to be sure. The BSLS requires 30 units minimum at the UD level, 9 of which can be elective professional courses. See chart on page 27 of the liberal arts catalog. So your UD management course units are not wasted and can be applied to the elective.
info lit and DSST I read in this forum somewhere that you could finish the Info Lit. course in less than an hour. What did they mean by that? I thought a course lasted at least 8 weeks or so...Is there a way to finish earlier at your own pace? I've been looking into DSST exams (it's my first time hearing about them). Wonder how long it would take for me to study for 2 exams, me being a moderate studier. I think I actually have everything covered for the BSLS degree, just those adv. arts & sciences that I lack. I could do a degree in business, but I'm trying to avoid the entire accounting mess and capstone course.
The Info lit is self-paced. In fact, if you wanted to, you could simply take the final exam and be done in about 15 minutes. However, if you fail, you lose your $$ I didn't want that to happen, so I did skim through it and finished it in a few hours. Tips: 1) many of the practice questions for each lesson also appear on the test. 2) The fact that you are now using the internet means that you know it exists. If you also know that libraries exist then you should ace this test. 3) The final exam is open book. You can search for the answers to the very few obscure questions while you are taking it. The time limit for the test is a few hours, so you can search for every single answer if you need to.
The EC Info lit course is for one semester unit - this takes the average student 15 hours of study. Maybe the exam must be completed in one hour. Most 3unit courses have 2 to 3 hour exams in my experience.
