I went mad and searched far and wide for an Online University offering a BSEE. (Undergrad Electrical Engineering) Found a grand total of three: Arizona State University, State University of New York, and DeVry. Of the three to which I had posted an inquiry, Arizona State is the only one to get back to me, and they did it in *minutes*! After revealing my qualifications, ASU then assigned me a student advisor (also in the Engineering School) and began the enrollment process. Like, immediately. By 1942 EDT yesterday (15 April 2015) I had completed their webapp application for enrollment and completed a request for my Guilford College transcripts to be delivered there by next business day.
Target: Have all my ducks lined up, be squared away and fully strack by 18 May 2015, when the Spring/Summer semester starts. Why wait? There appears to be no advantage in hesitation at this time. Full steam ahead!
And they're not playing around: My first semester will be adorned by Calculus for Engineers I followed immediately by Calculus for Engineers II. If all goes well my Guilford time (transcript) will relieve me of up to 64 hours of male-bovine-excrement classes (I'm not an archaeologist, don't intend to practice psychiatry, and have little to no need of 'African Customs in the 1600s'. These classes are purely a waste of my time: I've got a future to plan, and there is no place in its execution for 'Strange Customs of the Rama Empire'.)
Why? Well, during one of the many interviews that I engaged in in the past few weeks for AVT*, I kept running into the question "Where did you get your EE degree?" to which I had to respond "Nowhere, yet. I possess the skills, but not the sheepskin..." So why not? What holds me back? Well, for starters, there are almost *no* accredited EE on-line programs out there, regardless of the fact that the technology is ever-present. Says a lot about our schools and education system, doesn't it? We rant and rave about how the new-age classroom will be anywhere because of the 'net, but nobody has done anything about it. Yet. Oh - I can get an MS degree from about thirteen accredited Colleges online, but they all require (yup!) the undergrad degree first! And how does one go about getting that, I wonder?
So here I am - on the precipice of "Can he do it?" and "Why not? The younger crowd does it somehow, and they have the attention span of a caffeinated gnat!" We'll see how things devolve in the near future. I'll use this thread to post various observations and opinions as things develop. |
