Need input on plan for an English major

[LatinTea]

Plan for an English major, emphasizing History and some variety in Business (also satisfying 12th grade required classes and electives – American Government, Economics, English (of course), Health, Science, and Computer Applications). All CLEP unless otherwise stated. Online classes referred to are from Thomas Edison as Excelsior’s site isn’t as user friendly. This is from scratch with no college having been earned yet. Any major glitches that you see?

General Requirements (60):

English Composition w/essay
Humanities
2 more Humanity type subjects (?)
U.S. History I and II
Intro to Psychology
American Government
College Math or Algebra
Here’s to Your Health (DSST)
Info/Computer Applications
Principles of Statistics (DSST)
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Business Law (DSST)
Astronomy
World Religions

English Required Courses (12):

Survey of Lit I & II (online)
Analyzing Lit
Nonwestern Lit (online)

English Electives (21):

American Literature
English Literature
Shakespeare (TECEP)
Technical Writing (DSST)
This is where I need help. Are there any other tests that could qualify as English Electives? If not, then we will need to take 3 more online classes here.

Free Electives (27):

W. Civ. I and II
Rise and Fall of S. Union (upper)
Money and Banking (upper)
Civil War and Recon. (upper)
4 more electives of choice

[cookderosa]

Originally Posted by LatinTea

Plan for an English major, emphasizing History and some variety in Business (also satisfying 12th grade required classes and electives – American Government, Economics, English (of course), Health, Science, and Computer Applications). All CLEP unless otherwise stated. Online classes referred to are from Thomas Edison as Excelsior’s site isn’t as user friendly. This is from scratch with no college having been earned yet. Any major glitches that you see?

General Requirements (60):

English Composition w/essay
Humanities
2 more Humanity type subjects (?)
U.S. History I and II
Intro to Psychology
American Government
College Math or Algebra
Here’s to Your Health (DSST)
Info/Computer Applications
Principles of Statistics (DSST)
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Business Law (DSST)
Astronomy
World Religions

English Required Courses (12):

Survey of Lit I & II (online)
Analyzing Lit
Nonwestern Lit (online)

English Electives (21):

American Literature
English Literature
Shakespeare (TECEP)
Technical Writing (DSST)
This is where I need help. Are there any other tests that could qualify as English Electives? If not, then we will need to take 3 more online classes here.

Free Electives (27):

W. Civ. I and II
Rise and Fall of S. Union (upper)
Money and Banking (upper)
Civil War and Recon. (upper)
4 more electives of choice

>>

I think your business law will count as a free elective rather than a gen ed elective, but you could easily switch out the western civ you have under free. Did you find the page in the college catalog that lists the course/exam equiv?
Also- the social science and history exam (6) is VERY easy once you have taken a few classes in social science (psych, history, economics). Be flexible once he gets going- a lot of information overlaps, and he can take advantage of that. Also, he may find some subjects less interesting (more interesting!) or harder than planned. (science is much harder for me than I anticipated)

As for planning English classes- you should wait until he is enrolled-even if you save those until later. Reasoning is that he might have to transfer in classes from another college, and he will want (in writing) to work this out with his adviser. (I had a sociology 200 class transfer in as a sociology 174 which meant it didn't meet the requirement I planned for it to meet!) Also, you may remember someone suggested taking courses vs tests for those inside your major- I don't know if that is necessary, but it's worth looking into at a few colleges that offer masters in English degrees.

If you work it efficiently- he should be able to take many CLEPs in high school, and do his bachelor degree in 2 years of classes post highschool (with a few more CLEPs thrown in to pick up the slack).

[LatinTea]

Originally Posted by cookderosa

>>

I think your business law will count as a free elective rather than a gen ed elective, but you could easily switch out the western civ you have under free. Did you find the page in the college catalog that lists the course/exam equiv?
Also- the social science and history exam (6) is VERY easy once you have taken a few classes in social science (psych, history, economics). Be flexible once he gets going- a lot of information overlaps, and he can take advantage of that. Also, he may find some subjects less interesting (more interesting!) or harder than planned. (science is much harder for me than I anticipated)

As for planning English classes- you should wait until he is enrolled-even if you save those until later. Reasoning is that he might have to transfer in classes from another college, and he will want (in writing) to work this out with his adviser. (I had a sociology 200 class transfer in as a sociology 174 which meant it didn't meet the requirement I planned for it to meet!) Also, you may remember someone suggested taking courses vs tests for those inside your major- I don't know if that is necessary, but it's worth looking into at a few colleges that offer masters in English degrees.

If you work it efficiently- he should be able to take many CLEPs in high school, and do his bachelor degree in 2 years of classes post highschool (with a few more CLEPs thrown in to pick up the slack).

Yes, that Business Law must have slipped in there by accident last night. I'll replace W. Civ. for that one. You mentioned a page in the catalog? Are you asking about Thomas Edison's website? Maybe another catalog? I'm just going by their website; they give all the requirements on their 'Majors' pages.

I'm not really understanding 'he might have to transfer in classes from another college'. Are you saying that he may have to take some of these classes from another college other than the one he eventually enrolls in?

Yes, that Sociology test I had forgotten about. I will definitely add that one in. So, you are saying that as we get the basic CLEPs out of the way and near the latter part of the road, then an advisor will be able to help us with the remainder, once we are enrolled either in TEC or EC?

My son now has his own user name for this site. I'm going to get him going on this board hopefully today. Look for 'Ruddigore'.

Thanks!

[cookderosa]

[quote=LatinTea]Yes, that Business Law must have slipped in there by accident last night. I'll replace W. Civ. for that one. You mentioned a page in the catalog? Are you asking about Thomas Edison's website? Maybe another catalog? I'm just going by their website; they give all the requirements on their 'Majors' pages.
>>


Ok, good! On the pdf college catalog- around page 104 is a list of tests=classes which is VERY useful.


I'm not really understanding 'he might have to transfer in classes from another college'. Are you saying that he may have to take some of these classes from another college other than the one he eventually enrolls in? >>


In some majors, yes. I know of 2 for sure: restaurant management and history. We have a couple people here pursuing history, and I looked hard at the restaurant management degree. Just something to check on. Essentially, you just need to look at the requirements and count up the classes /credits /exams - see if there is a deficit.

Yes, that Sociology test I had forgotten about. I will definitely add that one in. >>

Sociology (3) you can add, but I was thinking about Social Sciences and History (6) which is one exam.

<< So, you are saying that as we get the basic CLEPs out of the way and near the latter part of the road, then an advisor will be able to help us with the remainder, once we are enrolled either in TEC or EC? >>

Actually when you apply- they help you a little, but full blown advising only happens once you $$$$

My son now has his own user name for this site. I'm going to get him going on this board hopefully today. Look for 'Ruddigore'.

WELCOME RUDDIGORE!!!!!

[cinderly]

EC Degree Plan - BS English Lit ("Literature in English") (The BS is more flexible than the BA for elective credits.)

Requires 120 CR, 30 of which must be UL.
CLEP are Pass/Fail; DSST affect GPA. Must have 60 graded credits for honors designations upon graduation.

General Education
HUMANITIES - 9 CR
Penn Foster English Composition (3) [WER]
CLEP Humanities (6) [HUM]

SOCIAL SCIENCES - 9 CR
CLEP Intro Psychology (3)
CLEP Intro Sociology (3)
CLEP American Government (3)

MATH/NATURAL SCIENCES - 6 CR
CLEP College Algebra (3) [QUAN]
DSST Statistics (3)

Major (English Lit) - 30 CR (15 UL)
I. Core - 15 CR
[Introduction to Literature] (3)
[British Literature Survey] (3)
[Shakespeare] (3)
[Survey of American Literature] (6)

II. Intermediate/Upper Level - 9 CR
[Literary Periods or Movements] (3)
[Literary Genres or Forms] (3)
[Major Authors] (3)
(one course must be pre-20th century)

III. English Electives - 6 CR
Additional coursework in any of the Requirement II categories and/or:
Comparative World Literatures
Thematic & Interdisciplanary Literatures
Linguistics (including Old/Middle English studies)
Literary Theory/Criticism
Emerging Literatures

Second Depth (History?) - 12 CR (3 UL)
CLEP US History I (3)
CLEP US History II (3)
CLEP Western Civ I (3)
DSST Civil War (3 UL)

Electives - 60 CR
INFORMATION LITERACY - 1 CR
Penn Foster Information Literacy (3?) [INL]

LL ELECTIVES - 50 CR
CLEP Western Civ II (3)
Foreign Language (6-12)
DSST Intro to Computing (3)
DSST Astronomy (3)
DSST Here's to your Health (3)
DSST World Religions (3)
CLEP Microeconomics (3)
CLEP Macroeconomics (3)
DSST Business Law (3)
CLEP A&I Lit (6)
DSST Technical Writing (3)
+ 2 (Org Behavior & Principles of Supervision? More English? Some other area of interest?)

UL ELECTIVES - 9 CR
DSST Rise & Fall of the Soviet Union (3)
DSST Money & Banking (3)
DSST Drug & Alcohol Abuse (3)

[LatinTea]

I found the pdf catalogs for both TESC and EC. I also called them for their catalogs in print. Thanks for reminding me that they do, indeed, have catalogs!

And, yes, I meant the SS and History exam. That one is great at 6 credits. I'm sure we'll be able to do that one easily.

I asked my son to post to introduce himself, but he's waiting 'until I have something so say, mom'. Hopefully, that will happen after he passes that first test!

Thanks again.

[LatinTea]

Let's see, as for Latin, we have done Latin for a couple of years, but it's pretty hard stuff. I don't know about taking an exam, but will look into French if we have time to learn it this coming year. Or maybe Latin, if I can find something that's not translating Cicero! We've mostly done sentences like, "Caesar has been killing the hostages in Gaul because he was the bravest general." What joy. Those Romans sure were fun guys.

Sounds like there are a ton of fun English courses to take, well, fun if you like that sort of thing. I'm sure we won't be lacking for ones to choose from.

Thanks for taking all the time to set in detail a course to take. I am not sure if those are your courses or you set a whole new list just for us. If so, that was very nice of you. I am going to print it out and see how it looks. I am better at seeing it on paper so I can write on it and so forth. Looks like there are more actual classes than I thought there would be. Are you saying that you have to take those classes or that they are optional, but would enrich your degree? Would any exams do in place of them?

This should be an interesting road to travel. Thanks again!

[cinderly]

You're welcome!

I suppose I should have included a key with the EC plan. I grabbed the requirements from the Catalog, then plugged in exams you'd mentioned along with suggestions for some of the general requirements. You may need a Research Writing course. I'm still not clear on what does and does not count for that (because it's theoretically not applicable to me due to my program admission year.)

The stuff in brackets [like this] are requirements, but I didn't make suggestions because, while I may be wild about a genre, Ruddigore may absolutely hate it. Same deal for authors. (I can offer suggestions if you like, but I don't want to rob you guys of the fun of finding interesting courses. The DSST Course Database is a great resource for finding them. They have a section on Semantics, fer Pete's sake!)

The Electives under Requirement III of the Major are the categories of courses to choose from. (There's some risk in taking courses without consulting an advisor from whichever school you choose, though.)

The Penn Foster courses are less expensive than the comparable Excelsior courses and meet EC requirements, per other student reports.

I know others have had good luck with them, but I would avoid Louisiana State University (LSU) for English courses. They seem to use a dartboard for grading and won't give feedback - even if you specifically request it. The head of the distance learning group told me that it is unreasonable to expect any feedback on written work. I've had great experiences so far with both BYU and University of Nebraska Lincoln. Go figure.