How to finish your American college education faster and cheaper

So the college education costs around $10,000-30,000 a year. If you're lucky, you can get scholarships and/or grants that can help you pay for them.

However, there are some unlucky few among you who have to pay twice the in-state tuition simply because you come from out-of-state or even from a foreign country.

Whether or not you pay a lot for your college education, you still want to graduate as soon as possible, right?

Then CLEP is the solution for you.

CLEP, which stands for College Level Examination Program, is a group of tests that assess college-level knowledge in several subject areas that are administered at more than 1,700 colleges and universities across the United States created by the College Board.

So for example, if you take a CLEP for Macroeconomics, and you pass that CLEP, you will be given 3 credit hours for that Macroeconomics class (without having taken the class at all).

What kind of CLEP tests are offered?

Almost every General Education classes are offered! General Education classes are the very basic classes that every American college student have to take, regardless of major. These include Algebra, English, History, and some Science classes.

Some colleges also offer major-specific classes such as Psychology, Business, and Nursing.

How do you study for CLEP?

There are two free websites that can help you with that:

1. Education-Portal (no registration needed)
2. Coursera  (registration needed, but all classes are free)

Other things you need to know about CLEP...

Be aware that not all colleges accept or even administer the CLEP tests. You need to find out for yourself by asking your college staff or advisers whether or not CLEP tests are accepted for college credits.

Also, CLEP tests are not free. From what I have seen in several college campuses, it ranges from $80 to $150... However, since it is still much cheaper than tuition for an actual class, I still suggest you take it.

Formats are different for each CLEP tests, but you can be rest assured that each CLEP test carries mostly multiple-choice questions with only a few short-phrase sentences (with the exception of language class CLEP tests where there are some essay questions).

For one, I regretted having taken Algebra class in my community college. I had to come and sit in class for Algebra which was too easy simply because I have learned it long ago in my high school in Singapore. The class was so shockingly easy and so useless that I had to spend my class time reading manga. If I had taken CLEP for Algebra, I could have just bypassed the class altogether and get 3 college credits automatically.

Colleges put the cap of taking as many as 40 to 50 CLEP credits for 4-year undergraduate students, which means that if you take around 40 CLEP credits before the end of your first three semesters, you could graduate with a Bachelor's degree in as fast as five semesters!

So...what do you think? Let me know if this tip is helpful!

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My Grades in College so far...

Below is a list of all the classes I have taken in college, together with the number of credits and grade letters I have received for each of them!

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American Sign Language

I registered for the classes of ASL 101 and ASL 102 back-to-back as a foreign language requirement to complete my Associates. And in contrary to what most other people say, I think this is among the hardest languages I've studied, especially since I'm not adept in facial expressions.

As a result, I would have dropped my ASL 102 at the completion of 101 next month....if not for the highly-attractive young female professor who is teaching the class.

I love coming to this class. It is probably the first course where I have a perfect attendance (i.e., no skiving off classes).

Seriously, I do think that more universities should have a professor like her.

A slightly tall brunette-haired lady in her mid-20s, with a lithe figure, sweet complexion and always wears nice cardigans... ASL is probably the only class in my campus where male students don't doze at all throughout the lecture, not even for one minute. We just stare at those beautiful eyes, even if we don't understand one bit what the hell she's talking about.



So why did I decide to register for the class anyway?

(FYI, I had no knowledge of who the teacher was until the first day of class)

Because of the movie Orphan. Yes, that psycho-thriller movie about the adopted girl who ended up almost killing the entire family.

I rated the movie 4.0/5.0 in Flixster, and it was indeed one of the best movies in 2009. The movie has one of the characters, Max, who is a deaf-mute girl who communicates with her family using ASL.

It got me saying: Oh my, what a cute language!

I always have an adjective for different languages. While German is coarse, English is practical, Japanese is awesome, French is lovely and Chinese Mandarin is complicated, I'd say that ASL is cute.

I didn't know if I ended up liking ASL because I thought that the kid Max expressed the ASL well, or simply because I liked ASL for what it looks like. Anyway I ended up registering for these classes.

Little did I know that I would change my opinion of ASL later on. I should've known it.

But I don't regret taking this class. Why should I?

'post~script The professor — unfortunately — is happily married and has a toddler. Which kinda shucks, but that does not discourage males from looking at her anyway! Tsk tsk.. Shame on them! Haha.

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Do you know that there is no undergrad thesis in USA?

"Liberal Arts"

That's what I tell people when they ask me what I major in college.

Liberal Arts? What's that?

Oh, I study some stuff like history, politics, maths, geology, English...

*silence*

(It is a fancy name for "Undecided", really. I take the General Education requirements during the first three semesters, which is why I am allowed to declare myself as a Lib Arts major)

So....I am in the middle of a predicament here. My third semester is coming and by the middle of spring 2012 (or latest by May 2012), I should have declared a major already.

Some folks suggested not to fret about it, saying "you'll know it when the time comes", but I should know better.

Declaring a major is like getting a girlfriend. If you declare the wrong one, you can still break it up and take a major in another, but then you're stuck with wasted credits and may have to repeat a semester or two.

And if I didn't find the most suitable major for me, I would graduate with a degree that provides me a pathway to jobs that I disdain. By then it would be akin to having a annoying, bossy, jealous, hen-pecking wife.

Therefore, following my mother's advice, I explored several majors and their possible career choices...

1. French. I know I would love and savour every minute of studying this in college, but admittedly the career prospects are pretty dim. My family would have spent at least US$35,000 in university tuitions by the time I graduate in 2014, and the starting average pay for French grads is not even half that. Hence, no.

2. European History. I can't take this major know, for the same reasons as above. However, it would be a great major to take a Master's thesis in.

3. English. Oh please, this is America. They don't even speak (proper) English here.

4. Finance/Business. Dad suggested this one, due to my preference in not dealing with customer service in my jobs. I can become a financial analyst, accountant, economist, and the likes with this major. I am still not too keen on studying Economics though (it has always been my weakest forte amongst all Social Science subjects), hence I am putting this as a second-in-line.

5. Computer Science/Information Technology. True, I have neither experience nor knowledge in this subject. But so does most CS/IT students I know of. The one that allures me most is the very fact that people in this major end up graduating to take high-paying jobs (ranked No.5 most lucrative university discipline by CNN money). So I am thinking...what the hell, why not?

6. Business Informatics. This actually combines the two majors I mentioned above: Business and CS/IT. I would reckon that it would be more sought after than the last two, since it combines the financial acumen of its graduates with their fluency in programming language and software cognition. But I also would reckon that the level of difficulty would be high, since two different disciplines are meshed together to make a fiendishly tough stuff to study.

What about the final thesis? Do you think you can do the final thesis of CS/IT or Business or whatever tough stuff that you're gonna study? I bet it's gonna be a tough, tough one

Thesis? Art thou jesting me?

There are no such thing as thesis for undergrad students in USA, darling. In most Asian countries, yes, there is a thesis examination (or dissertation or "skripsi" in Indonesian language in case there is a term confusion here). On Asian undergraduate thesis, you have to write a 50-100 page research paper which has to be defended in front of a committee.

But not in USA. Thesis/dissertation in USA is only for those taking Graduate school or Doctoral schools.

There is a final paper for some US majors, yes. But even then, it is only practised at some private colleges and does not normally have to be defended in front of any committees whatsoever. Your paper is to be graded by one or more university instructors, but still, you don't have to defend it.

That's the best part of it, I guess. I would very much prefer making a speech in front of a podium. Defending a thesis in front of a committee, where four years of toil and sweats and $35,000 student loan sits on it, would make me (or anyone, for that matter) very, very nervous.

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College life as I see it

Varsity colours...seeing the college cheerleading squad...clapping for the campus basketball team...dating the girl from English 102 class... My college life?

Not at all.

In fact, I was so mesmerised by such an idealised notion of what a "college life" is supposed to look like. Now I am completely dumbfounded when I found that....it's actually not as pretty as I thought it would be.

Being in a small two-year college with virtually not plenty of academic clout in the state (except for the Tri-state region of Kentucky-Ohio-Indiana), there is not much to boast here.




In fact, I am quite bored already. I started my first week in classes expecting to see and learn new things...things that are supposed to be challenging and fun.

But nah, it's kinda lacklustre.

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