Are my eyes being deceived by these two programs?

I just have a question about two programs from two very different schools and what I am looking at. Here the two link: Thomas Edison State College: Electronics Engineering Technology AND Associate in Applied Science in Electronic Engineering Technology Now we all know TESC is a traditional school and the program is a traditional 60 credits, but the CIE program is a specialized school in Electronics and its 254 lessons/106 credit hours. Does it just look like much more learning than the TESC program? Would you say within the TESC program there are probably the same amount of lessons or near the same amount and the same amount of learning? Thanks for any help.

 

I'm not sure if it matters to you, but TESC is RA and the other school is NA.

 

Yeah your right in the end, but was just wondering why such a huge lesson listing for CIE. Seems very thorough.

 

Here's another point to consider:

- TESC requires 120 credits for a bachelor's degree, which is fairly typical. That's exactly twice the 60 credits for the associate's, which is also typical.

- World College (which is a division of CIE) requires 139 credits for a bachelor's. That's obviously not twice the associate's level of 106, which is what the CIE associate's is supposed to be. Seems unusual for a school to require 106 credits for an associate's, then just 33 more for a bachelor's.

If you want more explanation about CIE/WC credits, you will probably have to contact CIE directly.

 

OK, here's one more point:

- World College requires 139 credits for a bachelor's, as noted above, over 8 semesters.
- But World College also says that a CIE associate's degree is equivalent to the first 4 semesters of the bachelor's program.
- That's half the bachelor's program. So a CIE associate's degree should be equivalent to half the credits needed for a WC bachelor's, which is 69.5 credits.
- 69.5 for a CIE associate's degree credits is pretty close to the 60 credits required at TESC for an associate's degree.

Don't ask me why CIE says the associate's program is 106 credits, while WC implies that the same program is only 69.5 credits.

 

Odd I must say, thanks for the explanation. Seems you do most of the work in the AAS, then its very easy to get your BS which they call a B.E.E.T for some reason without the S.

 

I have to disclose the only reason I wavered just a bit is I am going to hate doing the "General ED" part of the TESC program even though I'm going to do a combination of TECEP and Straighterline exams to get the credit. The great thing is I won't have to do the A,B,C,D part of the actually engineering part because those parts were covered in the Penn Foster ET program. I am DYING to get into the G part, Electronics engineering electives. Those are all fascinating subjects to me, but I love this stuff.

 

Any chance CIE is working in Quarter Hours?

 

What are "quarter hours", I never heard the term?

 

Quarter hours are a different type of credits. Three quarter hours are two (classic) semester hours. In that case, 106 quarter hours are 70.66 semester hours. It's not exactly 50 percent of 133, but it makes much more sense.

 

OK, I meant 50 percent of 139 semester credits, of course.

 

Interesting, it doesn't mention quarter credit hours anywhere on their website. Are they particularly a bad thing? I mean if someone got a BS degree from CIE-WC it wouldn't matter unless you wanted to go for a full EE degree. But I would say anyone who gets there B.E.E.T from CIE-WC is most likely not going any farther anyway. Its kinda the last stop for a person that attends CIE. Am I on the right track there with that assessment?

 

No, but it means that they aren't directly comparable to semester credit hours.

Suppose you sign up for a 3-credit course at your local university. You take the class, pass, and at the end of the term you get 3 credits. Right?

But -- how long is the term?

Some schools divide the academic year up into two semesters, which run for maybe 18 weeks each. But other schools divide the academic year up into three trimesters (sometimes called "quarters", counting the summer as a fourth term), which run for maybe 12 weeks each. The "credits" in such cases are not equivalent -- 3 credits from an 18-week course are worth more than 3 credits from a 12-week course.

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Let's say you study Intro Chemistry for a full academic year:

- At School A, which is on a semester system, that might be two 3-credit semester classes, each lasting about 18 weeks. So you have about 36 weeks of classes total, and you get 6 semester credits total.

- At School B, which is on a quarter system, the same material might be presented as three 3-credit quarter classes, each lasting about 12 weeks. So you have about 36 weeks of classes total, and you get 9 quarter credits total.

So 36 weeks of class earns 6 credits at School A, but 9 credits at School B. The difference is that School A is using "semester credits", while School B is using "quarter credits". Schools recognize the difference and use conversion factors. If you wanted to transfer 6 semester credits from School A to School B, then School B would multiply the semester credits by 1.5 to convert them into 9 quarter credits.

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WC uses semester credits, and requires 139 for a bachelor's degree. This would be equivalent to 208.5 quarter credits (multiply by 1.5). Half of that would be 104.25 quarter credits.

CIE says they require 106 credits for an associate's degree. If those are quarter credits, then that number would be pretty close to the 104.25 quarter credits that represent half of a WC bachelor's degree.

But we're just guessing. If you want to know for sure, you will have to ask CIE.

 

Thanks CalDog, all makes sense to me. One of the things I am disappointing about with CIE is they have not replied to all my emails, in fact its about 50%. Something may be blocking my email on their end though, like a spam filter or something. I only called them once and the lady was very nice.

 

To add on to what CalDog says don't think that just because classes are shorter or longer has anything to do with them being semester or quarter hour credits. Classes can be as short as 4-5 weeks and be 3 semester hours and are worth the same "credits" as an 18 week course.....

Find out from each college what system the use.

 

I've heard from a few people now that CIE's programs are really tough, especially the eletronics program. So knowing that, I just figured that the credit hour numbers they use represent the difficulty of the program (i.e. the amount of time needed to complete a course being more than the "usual").

 

Hmm interesting info LearningAddict. Sounds like the program is a good one then.