One last economics class to take. What are my online options?

January 13, 2013 11:43 PM

My friend has one last class to take. Economics 10B at UC Santa Cruz. She's already clarified with the dean that she can take this lower division class at an accredited institution. Where can she get this done as quickly and painlessly as possible? BYU Online?

This is the course description for Econ 10B at UCSC:
Managerial accounting emphasizing analysis and control; accounting for corporations; introduction to taxation, budgeting, and equity/debt financing; management decision making.
UCSC Site

So essentially, Managerial economics/accounting. I've found what I believe to be equivalent at BYU Online: BYU Online Course

1) Has anyone had experience with online universities and transferring credits?
2) Has anyone had any experience with using BYU online? Was it difficult to find a testing center to take the exams?
3) What other online options are there? Is University of Phoenix any good?
4) Are there any community colleges that offer online classes like this?

Self-paced would be ideal but a scheduled online class wouldn't be bad either. She's not looking for an amazing educational experience, she just wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.

posted by just.good.enough to education (5 answers total)

Is she still in California? Assist.org exists to describe transfer credits to/from California universities and community colleges. As an example, ACCTG 2 at LACC transfers directly to ECON 10B at UCSC - she can do the same search for Econ 10B's equivalent at any community college in California. Outside of California, it gets more complicated.

Maybe she can find a California community college that offers an equivalent course online?
posted by WasabiFlux at 12:00 AM on January 14

Cabrillo College is the closest community college to Santa Cruz. Completing the class there will be cheaper and more convenient than BYU. So going through ASSIST, ECON 10B = ACCT 1B Managerial Accounting at Cabrillo, which is one of the online classes available for Spring 2013. Sidebar lists all the steps necessary to enroll concurrently at Cabrillo.

I really can't say enough good things about the quality of education I got at CA community colleges. And I guarantee that the majority of Banana Slugs who fulfilled a GE outside the university, went to Cabrillo. Good luck to her!
posted by book 'em dano at 12:55 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

Assuming speed is more important than workload, have her look at a "mini-mester" at a community college. These are full-credit, six-week courses. She'll surely be able to find a California CC with the appropriate class (see above) on-line. Since CC's usually have open enrollment (meaning anyone can take courses) and she's looking for an on-line class, any Cal CC (i.e. the location won't matter) should fit the bill quite nicely (and at a low cost!).

She should still be able to sign up for "Spring B" courses (in a system where the standard Spring semester starts in January) with no problems at all. Those classes will start sometime in March. So, she doesn't have to rush right now, she can look around for a bit. (Of course there is no reason to delay, either.)
posted by oddman at 5:06 AM on January 14

Has she clarified what the procedure is for getting a course approved from somewhere that isn't a CA community college (where assist.org has the equivalency already listed)? The credit will transfer, but she needs the department to accept it in lieu of 10B (possibly both the Econ department and whatever department her major is in, assuming it's not Econ). In particular, will they approve a course as equivalent before she takes (and pays for) it? For this reason, the community college option may be easiest.

I had to do this with a math class (at Berkeley, so who knows how applicable this is to Santa Cruz), though I wasn't transferring the units--I wanted placement for purposes of the major. It was a matter of filling in a form and going to (I think) the head of undergraduate advising (but it might have been the department chair) and showing him the syllabus and textbook, but this may, of course, vary with UC and with department. I also had a non-California community college class that I counted for a breadth requirement. The units transferred easily. I had to take the syllabus to some office and fill in a form. (I wasn't claiming it was equivalent to a specific course, so as far as I know, no academic department got involved, though maybe there's breadth requirement faculty committee that reads these requests.) Anyway, what she needs to figure out depends on precisely what she needs the course for requirement-wise.
posted by hoyland at 6:38 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the help so far! Assist.org is extremely useful, although it's too bad the interface won't let me see all the classes 10b is equivalent to at once.

Her permanent address is in CA but she's been travelling around a bit. She won't be in one place for 6 weeks for a long while, although I'll show her that option.

She said she's talked to the dean about transferring credits, but I'm not sure if she can approve it before she takes the course. I'll check with her.
posted by just.good.enough at 11:01 AM on January 14