How do online college classes work? Need additional units to be licensed

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  • #186329
    Kel Kel Kel
    Participant

    I need additional units to meet the 150 unit requirement to be licensed in CA. I work out of town quite a bit, so I thought online would be the best. Do you have to logged in at a prescribed time when class is in session? That may be hard for me as I’m out of town quite a bit and sometimes do not have good internet connection on the jobs. I would much prefer self paced study (as I did with CPA review), but not sure if that exists. Any information about online college classes would be very helpful.

    F- 84
    A- 81
    R- 86
    B- 74, 71, 83
    Licensed in CA

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  • #575329
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I am also looking at distance learning and it looks like you study at your pace and at your time.

    Distance Learning provides educational opportunities that are not limited to the time and space constraints of traditional classes. Online instructors utilize a wide variety of tools such as online lectures, assignments, tests, discussion forums, and streaming video.

    You are encouraged to register for distance learning classes early. There is a high demand for many distance learning classes and classes may fill prior to the end of the registration period.

    #575330
    joelseph
    Participant

    I had to take 3x online courses of my choosing (excel/access/visual basics) to get to my 150 (after a year long accounting program). I made the excel professor aware of why I was taking the class and she let me submit everything up front, I finished the class requirements, exams, etc. in like 4 days.

    Not always typical but they are much more flexible.

    FAR: 84 on 4/4/13
    AUD: 91 on 7/27/13
    BEC: 72 on 11/11/13, 82 on 01/03/14
    REG: 80 on 02/27/14

    #575331
    mla1169
    Participant

    Depending on the course-you get the syllabus up front. You need to participate in group discussions on 3 seperate days during the week-and your first post is due by Tuesday of that week. Exams are taken by a specific day and once you launch the exam it is timed and there are no re-try's (as in even if you lose internet connection during the test!)

    Many classes will have group projects that are collaborated online. These are the 7th ring of Hell. Much like in person group projects there is a lot of whining, and 1-2 people carry the load of 4-5 people. The upside is that your professor can see who put in the effort (in your group discussion board) and who didn't pull their fair share.

    FAR- 77
    AUD -49, 71, 84
    REG -56,75!
    BEC -75

    Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

    #575332

    All online programs generally just require you submit your work on time. Quizzes, homework exams etc. Some require a certain amount of participation on forum boards but that's becoming increasingly rare and you can do that at any point in the week even if it is required. I think you will find them very compatible with your work travel schedule….

    MBA,CMA,CPA, CFF?, ABV?

    #575333
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Check out Colorado State University Global campus. They have 8 week classes that start every month and they are regionally accredited. I am taking some accounting classes there to get to my required number.

    #575334
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I took a few classes through UOP online to reach the required accounting hours and did a MBA online through Ashford University (both regionally accredited). I would slightly disagree with some of the previous comments. Most classes will require that you login and contribute to ‘online conversation' two to three times per week. It is a bit flexible; however, it is required that you contribute to the conversation before a certain amount of time elapses. For example, both colleges had discussion boards in which you must participate by Thursday each week, with the class week beginning on Tuesdays. This gave you three nights to respond to the original topic posted by the professor. Then, you need to comment on other students' contribution by the end of the week making at least 4-5 comments in total per week.

    Added after edit**

    In addition, for UOP and Ashford, you can expect to write one paper per week. The length of the papers varied from 2-3 pages for the first few weeks to 8-10 for the Final paper for each class. I had very few tests and quizzes and some classes had none at all.

    #575335
    Quinacridone
    Member

    I did half of my BA and all of my MAC online. Every class was different. I will say that my MAC level classes were much more structured – lectures posted bi-weekly, group assignments, required discussion boards, proctored exams (which was a pain in the a$$ while trying to maintain a work travel schedule – I had to cancel two work trips because they wouldn't budge on the testing schedule). During my BA program, the classes varied a lot more as far as interactions/involvements and generally provided much more flexibility.

    Lesson learned: make sure you really do your research upfront. Its hard to look at a course description and really know how the teacher is going to conduct the class. You need to see if you can actually correspond with the teacher first.

    REG - Nov 4, 2013: 88
    FAR - Feb 27, 2014: 86
    AUD - April 5, 2014: 91
    BEC - May 6, 2014: 83

    Florida CPA 24 July 2014
    (Done in seven months - thank you Jesus!!)

    #575336
    h0wdyus
    Member

    @Akkula

    Can you please provide the link for the Colorado State university Global campus. Further what was the fees per credit.

    I need to cover 30 credits, do you think they have enough credits to take to complete 30 credits.

    FAR - 81 29th Aug 2013
    AUD - 84
    REG - 82
    BEC - 89 29th Aug 2014
    Using Yager

    FROM NJ

    #575337
    Mamabear
    Member

    https://csuglobal.edu/

    I need 4 more classes after I finish the exam too. It looks like it is $1050 per 3 credit course. i think there are cheaper schools you can go to if you just want credits. I remember a few posts about this. You may want to search through the forum for “additional credits” or “online course”

    CPA Exam - Finally DONE (November 2014)
    BEC (08/10/13) 80
    AUD (08/24/13) 65 (11/13/13) 85
    FAR (04/12/14) 81
    REG (07/19/14) 69 (11/29/14) 87!!

    #575338
    h0wdyus
    Member

    @Mamabear

    Thanks. University or Northern Alabama is a lot cheaper, I think, i will check out the links

    FAR - 81 29th Aug 2013
    AUD - 84
    REG - 82
    BEC - 89 29th Aug 2014
    Using Yager

    FROM NJ

    #575339
    nicole2035
    Member

    i did 4 of them in a row last summer. not bad but you need to check the class syllabus before it starts, tho it may be online they may require some things to be done in person. for example a speech class i had made us do speeches in front of 5 different people or more every time. You couldn't reuse people and u had to show the audience, couldn't edit the video etc. i was back home in an area i didn't know anymore after graduation, talk about a pain in my ass…

    #575340
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    LSU has the most flexible online classes that I have seen: https://is.lsu.edu/ Self-paced, as short as 8 weeks or at long as 6 months (or 9 months depending on which version you get). If you search LSU you can find where I've posted a LOT of information about them in the past…but you can't beat them for flexibility. I did all my accounting classes through them. They don't have required discussion board posts or other such requirements, just 1 homework assignment per chapter which can be submitted at any time. Cost is $505 total for a 3-credit hour course. Check them out! 🙂 Courses start literally all the time – it takes them a couple days to process your paperwork, then you're live in your course!

    By the way, most tuition rates go up July 1 (I know they do for LSU), so I'd register for whatever you think you can definitely do within 6 months (or whatever the course length is where you pick) now so that you can get the current tuition rates!

    #575341
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Here is what I have been told by CSU global so far.

    For accounting courses, there are no exams so there is no need to get a proctor like at LSU. Most of the credit is given through papers and participation. I am not sure I would take this type of course if I hadn't yet passed the CPA exam, but it is nice to not have to cram for exams.

    I needed a school that would allow me to be in a degree seeking program in order to get reimbursed by my employer–so I couldn't do LSU or UCLA extension. Anyhow, I am starting in July and I think I should be able to get 15 credits done by the end of the year.

    I probably would have gone with UCLA extension if I didn't do CSU global–they seem to have a lot of variety in the classes they offer.

    #575342
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I've taken a bunch of online classes. For each of them, we had a required number of postings in the class discussion board each week. They had to be thoughtful discussions, not just a one line note or something.

    All of our exams were timed. Once you started it, you couldn't exit until you were done. But you could take it whenever you had time during the time period set by the professor (typically 5-7 days for my classes).

    I did have some group projects that were a pain. I was lucky and ended up in groups where everyone helped out, but it was tough having all discussions online.

    I loved the freedom of taking online classes. I used the schedules provided by each professor to make myself a calendar of all my assignments/exams/projects and their start/end dates – then I just fit the work in around whatever else I had going on in my life. For one class I even finished a paper sitting on the beach.

    #575343
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I forgot to mention that they told me CSU global didn't have any group projects. As mentioned above, it seems like those suck!

    We will see how things go and I will try to remember to post once I get into some of the classes.

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