Published Feb 19, 2015
MNFlymedic
1 Post
Hello everyone, I am enrolled to start at Excelsior in a week and very excited to get working on this. I am going to take part of the degree in classes, and part as the exams, that way I can at least use financial aid for the classes. The question is has anyone here completed their degree this way and how long did it take you to do it? I am coming in not transferring any credits so it will be from zero and have NO clue at the credit load I might be able to handle. Since transferring zero credits, I am only allowed 4cr the first term, but this is a class that I will be able to gauge the time and effort needed, the exam classes make me nervous about getting in too deep too fast. At the same time I want to get this done in a reasonable period of time. I do have quite a little bit of free time and 36hrs a week at work to study if I'm not flying. Can anyone shed a little light on this for me, I know I am beating a dead horse with this question in this thread but I can't really find an answer that would help. Thanks so much for any assistance!
CKPM2RN, ASN, EMT-P
330 Posts
I do think that it is a good idea to test the waters on your ability before you go full in. I am nearing the CPNE, have been a medic for 17 years and I'm looking forward to getting off the rig.
Since I have a degree in communications, I didn't need to do the English or Humanities courses, only the Microbiology and other science-based pre-req's so I can't speak to the difficulty of those. I have heard of some students using other sources to obtain some of these credits, perhaps someone will post some ideas.
Good luck, I will be interested in your progress.
ChrisRicci
167 Posts
You can do math beginning algebra through Aleks and life span development through CLEP or DSST. If you google excelsior clep you can download the student book that has the clep exams in it. You have to take a&p and micro before the nursing classes, but you could do the clep or aleks at the same time, if you have time that is. It took me 14 months start to finish and I took DSST life span & religions before I enrolled, each was about 3 weeks. Already had math and english credits that transferred. I spent about 3 weeks each on a&p and micro, I had them before so they weren't bad. The Analyzing literature clep I've heard is quite easy and is 6 humanities credits. Info lit only takes a few hours online to complete. With intense study you could probably do an exam every 2-3 weeks or so and then 8 weeks for fcca and 3-6 month wait for cpne. I didn't take any of the online courses, just the exams. studygroup101 was my key resource and they have audio now too.