Big Three Grads, What Did Your Degree Do For You?

Graduates from Thomas Edison State, Excelsior and Charter Oak, speak up!

What has your degree done for you in terms of job advancement, new career opportunities and further education?

 

I got into grad school, received four promotions, and tripled my salary.

 

BA Psychology From TESC

My degree in Psych from TESC helped me to get a better job and raised my income by $15,000 per year.

 

I got a BSN from Excelsior and then a MSN/FNP from BSU. I am working as a FNP in a community clinic making a lot of more money. Additionally, I have normal work hours now.

 

I've had it less than a few weeks, but it got me into a Grad program..

 

Pretty impressive! Congratulations to each of you! My wife has not graduated from Excelsior yet, but should be done within the next 12 months. Coupled with a Paralegal Certification, upon graduation from Excelsior she will be eligible to sit for the CLA (Certified Legal Assistant) exam through NALA (National Association of Legel Assistants). Should translate into more money and faster promotions.

Pug

 

I had an Excelsior grad go through my OU graduate program with me.

 

My COSC degree allowed me to get into grad school. No career advancement or raises that I couldn't have received without the degree.

 

Mine made me feel really good about "damn! I did it! I finally finished my bachelor's degree after 25 years of working on it!"

I coulda got into grad school with a bachelor's from anywhere but my Excelsior BS got me in just fine.

 

Like others, it got me into grad school.

 

I'll be honest, there are some good stories and some ok ones. Almost all of the people who used their Big 3 degree to get into grad schools are currently attending distance learning or little-known schools.

If you don't use your Big 3 degree to get into a better and more well known grad school, then why bother. I seems to me people love to tout the Big 3 but a degree from there doesn't seem to help much.

 

This could be due to the fact that:

They can't afford to go to a top25 school

Their jobs don't require a prestigous degree.


This doesn't mean that they can NOT get into a well known school.


BReady

 

In my opinion, a big 3 degree is good for being able to check the figurative "college degree completed" box on an application.

Many of us were well established in our careers before we finshed our big 3 degrees. Because of this, some of us didn't get or expect any sort of career advancement because of a degree.

As a side note, I believe the admissions counselor at Regis University was less than impressed with the 30+ Clep/Dantes/ECE/TESC tests listed on my transcript (he made a couple of comments). I think they would have preferred I had a more traditional education. With that said, it didn't stop me from getting accepted or completing the MBA program.

 

LOL. This mentality reminds me of an article I read a while back. Basically, CEOs of top corporations were surveyed to find out which schools they attended.

To the surprise of the researchers, an overwhelming majority of them just had a community college education, or a 4 year degree from a "little-known" school.

 

Ummmmm.....check out the sig line directly above your post.

 

I got into the University of Florida and California State University's graduate programs. Are those little known schools?

 

It depends. Those are well known states and the state name attached to the school probably makes them better known than the schools may have been otherwise.

Heck, I live in California and I couldn't tell you what programs in which CSU is well known to be a leader.

Perhaps thaddoc meant many people have used big three degrees to get access into less selective graduate programs (instead of "little known schools"). As far as b-schools go, U of FL and CSU are little known programs when compared to highly selective programs like those at U of PA or U of Chicago.

 

CSU I'll agree with you, but the UFL Warrington School is ranked #41 by USN&WR.

 

Being ranked #41 certainly is great but schools even that far down the list are off most people's radar.