My Academic History: Bachelor of Science

SteveFoerster — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:46:00 GMT

Bless me Father, for I have sinned....

Hmm? Oh, sorry about that – it's tough to talk about my history as an undergraduate student without it feeling like some sort of confession.

In other words, I have to admit that I’ve actually had a pretty checkered history as a student. I was a terrible student in high school, barely graduating at all thanks to skipping so many classes and generally not taking anything seriously. I did go on to college, but in that first year I was more interested in chasing girls than chasing A’s, and after only passing about half of my courses I didn’t return the following fall.

It wasn’t until I was about twenty-two and had worked a number of dead end jobs that I realized that education was something I’d have been wise to have taken a lot more seriously. I went back to school at night, taking a course or two at a time at whatever university happened to be nearby. This went on for the next seven years, accumulating credit in dribs and drabs from different schools as I moved from city to city. Since this was the roaring 1990’s, the dot-com boom when IT jobs were easily had solely through technical competence, I was doing reasonably well in my career even though I was still without any sort of degree.

Then, at the end of 2000, I took a consulting job offshore, on the beautiful Caribbean island of Dominica. (I’m referring to the small English-speaking island, not the larger Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic with which it is unrelated yet often confused.) While this was an exciting career opportunity, there wasn’t anywhere local where it was practical for me to continue taking courses, and since I didn’t know anything about distance learning at that time, my progress stopped.

Fast forward five years. I was back in the U.S., and having thought back on how much I’d enjoyed the various different schools I’d attended I had become interested in higher education as a place to have a career. But I knew to be taken seriously in that arena it was time finally to buckle down and not only finish a Bachelor’s degree, but also go on at least for a Master’s as well.

But where should I go? I had about 70 semester-hours of credit from all my previous experiences, but it was scattered among transcripts from six different schools. I’d also picked up an IT certification that I thought might be worth some transfer credit. One day I was searching for options, and I ran across a mention of Charter Oak State College in Connecticut. This school was different, in that it allowed up to 100% of the credit applied to a degree to be transfer credit, offered transfer credit for IT certifications, and was open to an unlimited amount of transfer credit by examinations like CLEP.

I may not have been good at attendance when I was in high school, but I was always good with those standardized tests, so I had a feeling that CLEP would be ideal for me. I was right – while completing my degree I took only four courses, doing the rest, nearly a year’s worth of credit, by taking seven CLEP tests. In just over a year, I had a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and was ready for more.

As a final note: credit where it’s due. It’s very difficult to do this sort of thing without a support system, and I’m no exception. Without my family’s help, especially encouragement from my Mom, I don’t think I would have been able to finish, and if I had it certainly would have taken a lot longer. (Hi Mom!)

Next up, my Master’s degree program, warts and all.

Add to:

My A.T. Still University Experience : Dominica

My Academic History: Bachelor of Science