Any Penn State World Campus students?

Looking for comments on their correspondence/email courses for undergraduate credit. How hard, how flexible, how was the testing process, and how did the grading go?

Thanks!

 

Nobody? Help! Just trying to see if it'll be tough taking two Chem classes from them at the same time.

 

I'm currently taking ECON315 Labor Economics through Penn State's World Campus, but I can't really give a full opinion since I have just started and haven't gotten any lessons graded yet, let alone taken an exam.

Based on my limited experience it is very flexible. Most of the courses are self-paced independent study, and each lesson took me approximately 3-4 hours (to do the assigned readings and to answer the study questions). Obviously that's going to vary from person to person and from class to class, and will depend on other factors (ie. if you're working fulltime or have other committments that limit your free time). For some courses you have the option of sending your lesson to the instructor via email to get quick grading, but I haven't used this feature yet because the first few lessons in this course involved material that I couldn't send via email.

Whether I'd recommend them to you would depend on what you plan to use the undergraduate credit for. Are you considering earning a degree from Penn State? If so, by all means I'd recommend the program. Are you looking for a quick way to earn credit? If so, I wouldn't recommend Penn State because most courses have limits on the number of lessons you can submit a week, in most cases only 1 (so in a best case scenario it would take you 15 weeks to finish the typical Penn State course). Other universities offer distance learning undergrad courses that can be completed in considerably less time (many Brigham Young University courses, for example, can be completed in a minimum of 2 weeks, making them a good choice if you need credit ASAP). Are you looking for a cheap way to earn credit? If so, I probably wouldn't recommend Penn State either because there are cheaper places you can get credit from (Louisiana State University, Brigham Young University, and several others offer 3 semester credits for about $200 through distance learning). You also might want to remember that for upper level credits Penn State jacks up the price (3 lower level credits go for about $400, but 3 upper level credits go for about $1000). In my case, I'm taking ECON315 to fulfill a requirement at Cornell that will allow me to graduate early.

In summary, whether Penn State is worth it will depend on your personal circumstances (work/family committments, study habits, etc.) and why you want the credits. Post some more detailed information about what you need the undergraduate credit for and I'm sure others can give you more substantial help.

 

Thanks for that great summary! I've been looking for online Chemistry courses - General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. While many schools offered Gen Chem they didn't have the Organic class and I'd like to avoid taking classes from different schools and consolidate my transcripts by taking them both at the same school. I'm taking these courses as pre-reqs for nursing school (entering this fall) and wanted to stay out of the classroom and give myself a little flexibility with assignments around work and summer vacation.

Basically, my choices seem to be between Penn State and TESC. TESC will cost about $200 more and it doesn't look like I can pace myself plus I will have to stick to their 12 week schedule. Both seem to want me to buy the textbooks from their bookstores... did you buy yours from Penn State or from another place? One more appealing aspect of PS is when I turn in an assignment the professor returns it for a second chance at handing it in if the grade wasn't high enough. That's pretty cool but it also prevents me from speeding through.

Boy, I wish Brigham Young offered Chem classes. I had no idea you can finish a class in two weeks! I'll have to check into LSU.

Hope I gave you enough info to help out some more. I'd like to sign up soon to get the classes out of the way before July. I really appreciate your help!

 

Did a search in the Excelsior Distance Learning Database at http://distancelearn.excelsior.edu and noticed that UC Berkeley is offering independent study general and organic chemistry courses for $475 each:

http://explore.berkeley.edu/UCExt/subdiscipline.asp?value=8.2.&action=Internet

There are other universities that offer general or organic chemistry at lower tuition and/or lower completion times but UC Berkeley is the only one I found in the search that offers both courses. Do some searches in the Excelsior database and you'll probably find more options.


BTW, if the only reason you want to take both courses at the same college is so you can have both courses appear on the same transcript, couldn't you accomplish the same thing by using Excelsior's credit bank service to get courses completed from different institutions to appear on one transcript from Excelsior?

 

So Excelsior will send out both transcripts for me? That's pretty cool. I've seen their search database but don't know much more about them. How do they do that?

I'll check into UC Berkeley, too. Though I wonder if they'd be even tougher on grading than Penn State.

 

It's not a matter of Excelsior sending out both transcripts for you. What they do is put the credit on an Excelsior College transcript and you can send that instead of sending multiple transcripts from different colleges.

More information can be found here:

http://www.excelsior.edu/cred_bnk.htm

 

Oh, cool! Thanks again! Btw, I think I'll be enrolling with UC Berkeley. I like their outline and the courses look a little simpler than Penn State's.

 

Just be forewarned that the credit bank idea doesn't really work. Any group that requires transcripts will NOT accept the Credit Bank print out instead. You still need each individual school to send a seperate transcript. You can do the exact same thing by listing all of the course you've taken on a typed out sheet. It is considered equally valid or invalid.