Degree for the impatient...

Auto.:

 

...SNIP


Well, you can pursue a Geology or Physics degree online through Excelsior. Of course, you will need to take most of the Upper Division courses online, OR pass the Physics GRE with 80% or greater and take a few lab courses.

If you would like to view Excelsior's "Preferred Provider Catalog" for either the Physics or Geology degree, copy and paste one of the following search string in Google

"major in physics" site:excelsior.edu

"major in geology" site:excelsior.edu

When you find a link that interests you, click on the "Cached" link, followed by "Cached Text". This will bring up the information that you need. With a little hunting around you can see what schools offer what courses for each of the Physics and Geology major requirements.

Also, if you sign up for a free Excelsior account, you may view a basic "Guidelines for the Major in...." PDF, which lists the core requirements, upper level courses and electives needed for each major.

Good luck!

- Tom

 

What I meant was... I looked at the sample exams for all the subject GREs, and determined that in every case, I would need to study for them to get a good score. Id est, I don't remember any subject well enough "off the top of my head" to just schedule a GRE and get a good score without studying at all.

As I and others noted, this is probably true for most people - even those who've just finished an undergrad degree in a subject and are taking the GRE to get into graduate school - and the GRE practice books themselves say, "the test covers a broad range of subject matter, and no one is expected to be familiar with the content of every question." So it's not a terrible indictment of my academic ineptitude - just me noting that I'm actually going to have to study.

 

Nice tips, Tom, thanks!

At this point I'm hoping to go the GRE route. It's certainly not as easy as just cobbling together a whole bunch of credits from CLEPs and DANTES (though I plan to do some of those too, to round things out) but it gets most of the major out of the way very quickly.

Where I work (and where I'd be likely to want to work), a B.S. in Physics is more desirable than most of the other options, but there are a lot of interesting opportunities in Geology too, so I might consider that as a fallback if I totally bomb at Physics.

I did set up a free account at Excelsior. Since I want a BS with a major, a GPA, and GRE credits, they appear to be the most logical choice out of the big 3. The guy from BAin4weeks always says to start "today. Yesterday would be better," but I'm about to go to conferences for 2 weeks, so I'll probably enroll upon returning from those.

 

Creeping along...

Well, I'm back from the 2 weeks of conferences, but have been working far too many long nights, and I've got another 5 weeks of conferences coming up next month, which will run into the holidays... so I'll probably wait until January now to start the clock on my year of Excelsior enrollment!

That said, I did just feed the mailbox a transcript request for the only school where I ever finished a semester. One small step for me, one giant leap for my education?

 

Re: Creeping along...

My advice, as someone who dropped out of university to pursue a career in IT back in the last millennium, is to enroll in Excelsior College, as you have already decided that is the right institution for you, and not put off your education any longer.

In my own case, it was about 10 years between the time I left university with a partially completed degree, after earning a diploma in computer programming and systems analysis in college, and the time I decided to earn a degree. At first the idea of finishing the computer science degree seemed redundant given my work experience. However, when I considered possible careers outside IT the value of all those computer science and mathematics courses became clear. Teaching positions in colleges typically require a bachelor degree with most expecting a masters degree in the field. Using my "long forgotten" computer science and mathematics credits and the distance education courses in general education areas it made sense this autumn to refocus my efforts. By the summer I should have a BA from Thomas Edison State College; completing the AS in early 2006 as a stepping stone and as another education entry on my curriculum vitae. With good fortune and planning that masters degree is just over the horizon too.

You can achieve your education goals if you are willing to take the first step and stop procrastinating.

 

I don't consider what I'm doing right now as procrastinating. From early November to mid-December, I'm going to log 40,000 kilometers of air travel across three continents (my regular location not being on a continent at all), attending three week-plus conferences at which I'll be putting in 12-to-20-hour days. I'm not going to have time to study for exams, let alone take them.

Excelsior charges a certain amount (around $500) for each additional year of enrollment, so I'd like to get it done within one year if possible. The clock starts when I enroll, so if I know (which I do) that I won't be able to make use of a month and a half at a minimum, I don't want the clock running during that time.

Sorry for not making this clearer before.

 

Okay, I see you now have a definite plan in mind. My reference to procrastination was meant to keep you from putting off earning the degree since the degree is something you want to complete within a reasonable time-frame and with reasonable effort.

I am using the same approach with TESC. I just have to find out how TESC handles awarding an associate degree and then using that degree to obtain a bachelor degree from them (in terms of annual fees - do I pay the fee once for each degree or once per year regardless of the number of degrees completed within that year).

 

Excselsior

I graduated from Excelsior with a BS degree in General Business. It's one of the few degrees you can almost completely test out of. I was in the same position as you, sucked away from college to work at some dot.coms in the late 90's.

Excelsior will give you credit for Microsoft exams as well as Network+ and A+ exams. They weren't much but being I was already MCSE certified, they were able to fill a few elective holes in my degree.

The 4-week plan is VERY aggressive and isn't geared for someone getting a degree in science due to the labs and other course work not easily tested out of. As for a business degree, it worked great. I tested out of half my degree in a little over 3 months. There are certainly courses you can test out of, just not as many.

Here's a suggestion on enrolling. Figure out what classes you need (some are obvious) and knock those out before enrolling. Once you get close to having most of the credits, enroll and complete your degree in that year. It saves you the multi year fees. The downside is they could change the program while you are waiting but it's probably not likely.

--
Joe Nekrasz
BS General Business, Excelsior College
MA Military Studies, AMU (in progress)

 

GRE

One more thing to add ...

I probably tested out of over 60 credits via CLEP, DANTES, ECE and didn't find any of them to be that hard. I found some various study guides and studied (crammed) for a week before my exams. I passed all of them with mostly A's and some B's. I consider myself a very good test taker.

One day I decided to try to study for and take the GRE in Pyschology even though I hadn't really had any exposure to the subject. I figured if I hit the 80% mark, I'd have an instant second degree from Excelsior. I studied and studied, using various texts, study guides, notes, etc. for several weeks. I only managed to squeak out a 55%. On one hand, it's not bad. I did better than 55% of the people taking it, MOST of whom have extensive studies in Psych. The bad part is the 55% didn't get me anything.

The GRE is very hard if you don't have previous experience with the subject. Don't underestimate the exams. The 80% you need isn't a score out of 100%, it's the percentage of people taking it that you have to beat. Most of the people majored in the subject. It's very hard.

Some people here have done it but I suspect they had some solid experience in the subject before taking the exam.

--
Joe Nekrasz
BS General Business, Excelsior College
MA Military Studies, AMU (in progress)

 

Excelsior charges a certain amount (around $500) for each additional year of enrollment, so I'd like to get it done within one year if possible. The clock starts when I enroll, so if I know (which I do) that I won't be able to make use of a month and a half at a minimum, I don't want the clock running during that time.



You can take exams prior to enrolling.
Angela

 

Auto..

Well that's good! I found that one reason I did not zip through CLEP/DANTES exams (aside from I couldn't!) was that I liked studying for them. It was a great feeling knowing that I prepared for them and was leaving nothing to chance.

 

GRE

Thanks for the tips on the GRE, Bazonkers. I don't have college-level experience with physics, but I did okay in it as a high-school senior, and work in a very physics-oriented field. I agree, though, that it will not be easy, and I didn't know about how the percentage system worked. Somehow, I doubt there are a lot of non-majors taking the physics GRE for me to easily beat.

Angela - I can? Oh! Well that's neat then. I can just go around and take a bunch of tests until I have enough credits, then enroll and say "gimme degree now!" then? That would be... almost fun!

 

Re: GRE

Well, in a sense, yes. But you would still have to pay for an entire year, no matter when you decide to enroll. And if requirements for a certain program have changed since you started testing, you will be required to fulfill the new requirements to get your degree (it happened to me, so I've had to change my major). But yes, start testing! I still have all of my credits...
Best wishes,
Angela

 

This is a very hard test to score high on for a couple reasons. First, much of the material is pretty technical and not what programmers deal with on a day-to-day basis. That can be overcome by reading half a dozen college textbooks, but preparation is still daunting. Unless you know the details of the Master's Theorem already.

The second problem is that only the very elite CS grad schools require this test. As a result, the people taking the test are extremely self-selected and motivated. I think the Psych test ends up being "easier" because there are many more marginal students taking the test, so getting 80th percentile becomes easier. The CS test is the least taken test of all the subject tests (something like 5000 people the year I took it).

But all that said, if you can do well on the test, it would get you most of the IS/IT requirements for a BSCIS from Excelsior. You could then take ICCP exams for any remaining IS/IT requirements (which may not be necessary if you do well enough) and CLEPS, other GREs for the rest.

If you aren't interested in a IS-type degree, I would probably avoid the CS GRE like the plague.

 

Thanks for the info, Jeff - very helpful.

The IT aspect of my career (15+ years at this point) has been a lot broader than just "programmer" and a quick glance at the sample CS GRE indicated that reviewing some textbooks should pretty much cover things, yeah.

But I don't really want to risk being pigeonholed as a "hard CS" guy, which I most certainly am NOT - I'm a computing generalist sci-tech sort, and deal with a lot of technology other than computers.

Pursuing a degree in Physics would expand my knowledge more, and in ways that are more useful to me / people I work for, and I suppose that's kind of what college is about.

[Aren't I picky? Wanting not only to get a degree quickly, but in something hard? ]

 

Auto,

I say go for the Physics degree. It's something that your already interested in and like you said it would be a more useful to you and the people you work for.

BTW, after you're done with your BS, Michigan State University offers both an MS and a PhD in Physics (Beam Physics specialization). Both degrees may be completed (mostly) ONLINE! I'm not sure if you could get into this program with a BS from Excelsior, but it's worth looking into.

MSU - MS Physics: http://online-contined.msu.edu/program.asp?program=39

MSU - PhD Physics: http://online-contined.msu.edu/program.asp?program=40

Tuition: http://ctlr.msu.edu/studrec/On-line_Prog_Fees.htm

YES, it's pricey (unless you live in Michigan, then it's actually quite affordable for graduate level courses).

Good luck!

- Tom

 

Wow, Tom! Pretty neat. I don't know whether I'll be pursuing grad school at this point, and I mostly deal with astrophysicists, who don't usually get their particles in neatly packaged beams from outer space (thank goodness!) though of course there are exceptions... but there's probably a lot of correlation between beam physics and some stellar events, and probably fairly direct relevance once they get the particles into the telescope or instruments, since they're more or less trying to get them into a nice narrow beam at that point for sensors. I'll bookmark those.

 

And then I was silent for three years...

Sorry for being so quiet for so long. I didn't even realize it had been that long!

Anyway, lots of stuff happened, some good, some maybe bad, but none of it actually involved getting that bachelor's I had been hoping for. Work picked up, etc.

And then last year, while trying to find a friend in Google so I could email him, I stumbled across a school that offered a graduate program on-line, in the field I already work in, with reasonable tuition, and oh, yeah, based on my work experience, they might let me into the lowest tier of it without having to do that bachelor's first.

So I applied (my CV looks pretty good for someone who's got nothing beyond a HS diploma) and they let me in, and I'm a grad student now.

 

What school is it?