Anyone else looking forward to the CS degree finally coming to UMPI later this year? I can't wait! Although it does look like it'll take around 3 terms - seems like a lot of courses will need to be done at UMPI itself. 

Does anyone know if the degree has exams or if it's writing papers like their BABA?

I am a mechanical engineer working in MN with a BS & MS in mechanical engineering. I currently work full-time at a local semiconductor fab 9-5 Monday-Friday. I am also 33 years old and married with a four-year-old son and 11-month old daughter.

I met a CPA at the 2024 Boglehead personal finance conference who recommended I consider becoming a certified financial planner (CFP) based on my personal hobby and interests in index funds, financial and estate planning. He runs his own assets under management (AUM) wealth management firm in Northern California.

A certified public accountant with three or more years of relevant work experience can follow an expedited track to become a CFP since most of the CFP educational requirements will be waived. 

How Does CFP® Certification Complement My CPA? | CFP Board

In my mentor's opinion, a CPA/CFP is a very strong combination for a financial planner who wants to do advanced tax planning by merit of their experience with doing tax forms for trusts, individuals and small businesses. CFPs are more limited in the amount of tax planning knowledge they have compared to CPAs, which is why he recommended I take the longer path of getting a CPA first, if I am willing to put the work into it.

My career path would be to get the educational requirements completed in order to sit for the CPA exam, pass the exam, get the required work experience in Minnesota so that I can become a CPA. Then I will work for a few years at either a dedicated tax firm or a financial planning firm that also files taxes on behalf of its clients. Then I might spend a few years at a financial planning firm before going out on my own and starting a solo tax filing, financial planning business.
Since I already have a bachelors and masters degree, Minnesota has a route for me to sit for the CPA exam without getting a business or accounting degree. I just need to get 24 accounting credits at an accredited college university that are at an "intermediate or advanced level, not introductory level". See MN Rules 1105.1500 option D

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/1105.1500/

Minnesota Board of accountancy CPA exam requirements link: https://boa.state.mn.us/applicants.html#...ionsection

My CPA mentor's son who is currently working to obtain a CFP too said college level accounting coursework only importance is preparing you for the CPA exam. He recommends paying for a Becker CPA exam prep course, which is his preferred test prep company. Therefore they told me I should take accounting courses that help prepare me for the exam. Minnesota says my 24 accounting credits have to be in the four branches of accounting: financial accounting, managerial accounting, auditing, and tax accounting. It does not look like Minnesota cares whether my credits were earned from a college or university located in Minnesota. The only thing they care about is whether the college or university is accredited.

I tried calling the Minnesota Board of accountancy, but they told me that they don't advise anyone on what routes to take to fulfill the educational requirements. The recommendation was to talk to an academic advisor at the college or university where I plan to obtain my accounting credits. The problem is no school will let me sit with an academic advisor until I apply. There are many options for me to get accounting credits, so I would like everyone's opinion on this topic. I will email the MN board of accountancy once I have a proposed educational plan in place so that I can get their blessing in writing before I proceeded.

Questions:

1. What are the cheapest and fastest routes to get college level accounting credits completed? Thus far, I am considering going for an accounting certificate from TESU. The problem is, some of those courses are 1xxx level, which means they are probably introductory courses and won't help me satisfy the 24 credit accounting requirement. So I would like to skip out of those. I only found one CLEP exam in financial accounting. Sophia.org offers two past fail classes: one in financial accounting and another in managerial accounting. They do partner with TESU, but I will probably have to talk to the registrar's office at TESU to confirm that they will accept those sophia.org courses.
   
2. If I use a faster self study route such as sophia.org, will that provide me enough practice problems so that I can confidently move on to upper division accounting courses at TESU or another school such as WGU? I never took any business or accounting courses as an engineering student, so if I'm going to start from the beginning with accounting, I don't care which option I follow to get the credits completed as long as I am learning the requisite knowledge and getting more comfortable with the field of accounting as I get closer towards sitting for the CPA exam.
   
3. Looking at the TESU catalogue, it looks like I am allowed to take some of their upper division accounting courses as a self-pay option. From what I understand, this means there is no required homework, quizzes, or midterm exams. I am given Free non-graded chapter practic tests and can take each course is graded final exam when ready. Has anyone used that course option before? Does that course option even provide practice problems for me to study from?
   
4. From what I have read online, it looks like introductory accounting textbooks are updated by their publishers frequently because of changes made to US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which makes introductory textbooks obsolete quickly and adds a lot of costs for students. Are there any good open access textbooks people can recommend and managerial and financial accounting for self study? If not, this suggests I should just bite the bullet and take formal online accounting classes from a school where the instructor has all the study materials laid out for me.
   
5. my fear with following a traditional path to completing 24 accounting credits is that I don't think I have the ability to take more than one traditional course per term since I have a full-time job and I married with two children. If there are self study options available for me, that might make it easier to squeeze in more than 3-4 credits per term. I'd love to get all 24 non-introductory accounting credits completed in one calendar year, but that may not be realistic for my situation, so guidance and Frank advice is welcome.
   

Hi,

Has any transferred the following certs to Pierpoint for credit?

I sent over my ACE Badges for certs for Google UX Design, Google Project Management, and Google Data Analytics.

However, they didn’t include any credits.


Any feedback appreciated.


Thanks!

Hello All!

As the title suggests, I am looking to attain my Bachelors as quickly as possible. Ideally, in a business capacity as it will help leverage me into more senior positions in my industry (defense contracting). I have my AA in general studies and various other Gen ed/elective credits via JST and SOPHIA.

Your Location: Florida, United States
What kind of degree do you want?: Bachelors of any kind, with preference for business/project management.
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: have Military Joint Service Transcript, have completed 33 credits via Sophia.Org that went into attaining my AA in General Studies from American Military University. 
Budget: I have GI Bill so money is less of a restriction, primarily looking for the fastest way to attain Bachelors.
Dedicated time to study: I work full time job but have very flexible hours with up to 3-4 days off every other week. Looking to invest as much time as feasible into school and degree completion (20 hours a week?)
Timeline: Need to complete the credits and attain degree as fast as possible.

Background: Have AA in General Studies from AMU. Have JST from military service. Have completed 33 credits via SOPHIA.org that a good portion went to completing AA. Desire Bachelors (preferably in business/management) as quickly as possible where GI bill can be used (virtually any accredited college.)

Requesting any and all help in achieving this goal! Thank you in advance!

Please let me know if there is any more amplifying information that would be useful!

I'm applying to Liberty University's MA in Applied Linguistics. I have avoided Liberty University because I've heard it has a terrible reputation. However, as I look for a US-based master's degree in Applied Linguistics, Liberty keeps coming up. 

I don't personally know anyone who has attended Liberty but I reached out to a couple of alumni on LinkedIn. 

Does anyone here have experience with Liberty's Applied Linguistics grad degree? I know Liberty is regionally accredited but I'm asking about reputation - not accreditation. I don't really have an issue with Liberty being a Christian-affiliated university. I'm not religious but I do enjoy learning about religion and culture. However, do people mostly associate Liberty with being homophobic, tolerant of sexual assault, etc. Because I'm not down with that.

Also, I'd love to know about the experience itself. What was it like to attend Liberty? Does the college require responding to discussion boards? Are there group projects? Are faculty involved?

I've only heard about Liberty online and I'm interested in hearing about people's personal experiences in an online grad program at Liberty. 

Note: Liberty checks a lot of boxes but it isn't the only program I'm considering. Just wanted to get some opinions from folks who are familiar.

What kind of degree do you want?: Computer Science but honestly, anything Computer related, Data Science, CIS, whatever will get me that bachelors degree stepping stone so that I can hopefully move onto my graduate degree.

Age: 27
State: Maine
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 33 + 12 enrolled and in progress come 21'st

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits:
Link to spreadsheet: RA are my Regionally Accredited credits from current university : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing

Any certifications or military experience? no

Budget: Not really an issue

Commitments: Full-time software engineer, outside of that, nothing. 
 
Timeline: This summer

More context: 
So, I have spent the last year earning quite a large amount of Sophia credits, as well as RA credits. I am currently in university, but my university is giving me an incredibly hard time when it comes to Sophia credits and I would much rather just switch to a different university, due to a lot of reasons. I have approximately 129 credits right now, quite a bit that are RA, the rest Sophia, and then the college composition CLEP with Essay (scored a 64 on it). I currently have a 4.0 in my undergraduate studies. This semester I am taking AI and advanced Python, Advanced data structures and algorithms, Intro to information systems security, and Computers and Culture. I have explicitly been taking CS related classes refusing to take general eds at my college because their ACE policy said they accepted ALL ace approved credits, but didnt say that they only accept them for general electives, so now i'm stuck. I would like to transfer to wherever I could get a bachelors degree in a computer science related field as soon as possible. I currently am a full-time software engineer and really have goals of moving onto my graduate degree in artificial intelligence or just general computer science. Also, I did receive my AS BOG from Pierpont this last August. I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what my best options would be here, and I just don't know. You wonderful people here at Degree Forum have helped me out in so much, just reading your posts and such over the last 8 months, truly truly inspiring, so I finally had to get on and ask for some explicit help, Thank you!!

Your Location: Canada
What kind of degree do you want?: None, just need 30 credits of anything
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: None
Budget: As cheap as possible
Dedicated time to study: Will have complete free time for 3 months to study (May, June, July). Willing to work very hard all day and have no life to complete this if needed.
Timeline: Need to complete the credits May-July, and have a transcript asap

Background: I need 30 extra credits of electives on top of my existing Bachelor's to be eligible for my US CPA license, asap. I'm Canadian. What would be the cheapest and fastest way to do this? Although a degree would be nice, I don't need one, just 30 credits of anything on a transcript from an accredited college.

OK so here is where im at.... to get a pay raise at my school district I need to add 45 credits or 90 credits....I am at my wits end on figuring out a creative way to get this done... I dont care if i get another AA or BA as long as I can get as many credits (90) on a transcript from an approved school BEFORE June. I don't believe it needs to be another ED degree etc, and I dont care WHAT degree or area it is in as long as its fast cheap and takes as many of these sophia classes as possible. 

Im in Washington state, 40 not sure else yall need to know ask ill answer  

GOAL= FASTEST AND CHEAPEST PATH POSSIBLE FULLY ONLINE!

State requirements for the credits to count towards continuing ed can be found here: OPSI CREDIT POLICY

Currently hold a BAed from WGU 2013
                        MAed WGU 2020

Sophia "Credits":

SOPH #
sp 0023
sp 0043
sp 0002
sp 0063
sp 0073
sp 0056
sp 0016
sp 0006
sp 0029
sp 0074
sp 0009
sp 0020
sp 0005
sp 0013
sp 0017
sp 0012
sp 0011
sp 0033
sp 0014
sp 0010
sp 0021
sp 0079
sp 0007
sp 0026
sp 0055
sp 0078
sp 0001

Due to an unexpected career opportunity, I'm looking for an additional Master degree. I need it all online, no campus visits, asynchronous if possible. Don't think there is a CBE option but not opposed to it. School needs to be RA but will think about NA options if you find them super cheap.

Your Location: USA
Your Age: 55
What kind of degree do you want?: Master in English or Composition
Current Regional Accredited Credits: N/A - won't be transferring credit
Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits:N/A - won't be transferring credit
Any certifications or military experience?:N/A - won't be transferring credit
Budget: preferably under 12k.
Commitments: some, but I've been dual degree'ing it for three years now while working fulltime so I got this.
Dedicated time to study:as much as needed.
Timeline: doesn't matter
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: No

Do Teceps meet the RA req and the residency req?