Physics/Math Undergraduate by correspondence

[saneisjus]

Guys,
I just joined the navy and I keep hearing other sailors tell me they got their degrees through correspondence while on active duty, instead of waiting till they were out and using their GI Bill money for. Most of them have business or management degrees, so that might be the catch, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding any institutes that off any natural science/math courses via correspondence, much less an entire degree plan. Does anyone know any accredited institutes that offer something that I can put to a physics or math degree to transfer to another university once I'm stationed state side?

 

[Vanadium 50]

You should talk to your Division Officer about options. It's difficult to get a degree by correspondence, because there are elements that simply don't translate well to correspondence (like labs), but you can take mathematics, gen-ed, etc. while at sea and when your shore detail happens, then take the remaining classes.

The trick will be to arrange a shore detail in the right place at the right time.

He/she will also have information on other programs: USNA, NROTC, STA, etc.

 

[saneisjus]

thanks for the feed back.

 

[twofish-quant]

The ones that I know of are

Thomas Edison State College
Charter Oak State College
Excelsior College

Going outside the US. Open University and University of South Africa have well established programs.

These schools have will award regionally accredited degrees based on an individualized career plan, and it's possible to get a physics degree through those programs.

Also the "must have" reference book for these things is

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1580082025/?tag=pfamazon01-20

And John Bear is the main guru for these sorts of things.

There is a large section of that book that basically tells you how not to get scammed, and it names the people that you should *NOT* get your degree from.

One issue here is that I don't know of anyone that has completely a physics degree through those programs (or any other correspondence program). I'd really like to get in contact with people that are doing this sort of thing.

 

[mal4mac]

The Open University is worth checking out:

http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/countries/USA.shtm

It has a lot of experience teaching UK armed forces overseas:

http://www8.open.ac.uk/choose/forces/

It provides lab courses, if you want them, through one week residential schools, but these may not be available in the US... but they are available in many other countries!

In any case, you still get to do experimental research, e.g. the Astrophysics course listing says, "The OU’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and internet-based resources are used throughout the course. You’ll experience real, collaborative astrophysical research, online with a small group of other students, to acquire, reduce, analyse and interpret data."