Editing Thomas Edison State University (section)

=== Residency ===
Students who do not take at least 16 of their required 30 RA credits with TESU are subject to paying a residency waiver fee ($3192 as of June 2021). 

Because TESU charges a flat rate for 9 or more credits taken in a single term, and this flat rate costs less than taking just the 6 credits of the capstone & cornerstone + paying the residency waiver, some students may opt to maximize efficiency by taking 16 credits in a single term. This is not necessarily a good strategy for students who are busy working adults, but can be a great money-saver if you are able to clear out your calendar for the 3 months necessary.

==== TESU Credit Optimization ====

To take all recommended 16 credits at once, you must have 100 or more credits already and have the majority of your UL credits completed. 

Make sure you check the syllabus for a course before adding it to your degree plan in order to ensure that it is a good fit for you. Not all courses will be a good fit for all students. Aside from the required capstone/cornerstone courses, an effort has been made to find courses that students can at least pass with a grade of C. Although a C-grade won't do great for your GPA (and can hinder your prospects for a Master's degree), not all students care about such things. Simply being able to get a Bachelor's degree as cheaply and as easily as possible may be the entire point.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:80%"
|-
! style="width:22%" | Recommended Course !! style="width:64%" | Why !! style="width:16%" | Number of Credits
|-
| SOS-110 Information Literacy || This is the Cornerstone course that is required for all Associates and Bachelor's degrees. The only exception is for students who are obtaining a second degree bachelor's degree at TESU. || 3
|-
| BUS-421 Business Administration Capstone ''or''<br>LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone ''or''<br>Relevant capstone ||  A capstone course is required for almost all Bachelor's degrees. A notable exception would be the BS in Data Science & Analytics. If your degree does not have a capstone, you may choose a different course to make up the required number of credits. || 3
|-
| ENG-298 Jane Austen: Pride & Prejudice ''or''<br>APS-100 Medical Terminology ''or''<br>PLA-100 Introduction to Prior Learning Assessment || Because most TESU courses are 3 credits, you will probably need one more credit to bring the total up to 16. If you are an English major, you will probably want to take ''ENG-393 One Writer's Vision: Jane Austen'' for 3 credits instead of ENG-298 (you may only get credit for one or the other). If you do this, PLA-100 is reportedly an easy way to get one more credit. || 1
|-
| CIS-107 Computer Concepts and Applications (ePack) || This is a class that is required for business degrees and for Computer Science. While you can get this requirement filled at [[Sophia.org]] very easily, the ePack & TECEP are both reportedly extremely easy ways to get RA credit. This is because they require little, if any, studying. Although both ePack & regular courses count towards residency for everyone, ''TECEPs do not count for residency except for active military.'' || 3
|-
| ART-100 A World of Art || Should be relatively easy, especially after taking Art History I & II at [[Sophia.org]]. No exam. Final paper only counts for 20% of grade. So long as you do well on the rest of the course, you could get a C or even a B while still doing poorly on the final project paper. || 3
|-
| COM-339 The Story of Human Language || No exam. Final project is only worth 25% of grade. Short essays only need to be 250-300 words each. For an UL course, this one appears to be relatively straightforward. [https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-The-official-guide-to-courses-from-the-Big-Three-COSC-TESU-Excelsior?pid=351380#pid351380 Review of course available here.]|| 3
|-
| CIS-351 Software Engineering || For Computer Science majors. Reportedly relatively easy as far as UL courses go. No programming. No exams. Written assignments are relatively easy to complete. || 3
|-
| GOG-230 World Geography || No exam. Final project consists of compare/contrast two different countries. Even if you do poorly on this final assessment (worth 30% of the grade), you could still scrape by with a C and a pass. || 3
|-
| HIS-261 Introduction to Chinese History & Culture || For History majors. Meets non-Western civilization history requirement. One proctored midterm exam. No final exam. Final paper is only worth 20% of grade. || 3
|- 
| LIB-320 The Music of War & Peace || For Liberal Studies majors. No exam. Final paper is only worth 30% of grade. Each written assessment/paper except the final paper is expected to be just 500-1250 words in length. If you enjoy music, this could be an exceptionally easy UL course to complete. || 3
|-
|PHI-130 Introduction to Critical Reasoning 
|This is an easy and fun course in which there are no books to read, the discussion forums are worth 40% of your grade, the 200-500 word assignments are worth 40% of your grade, and the exams are only worth 20% of your grade. The exams you can get by with 2-5 hours of studying each. The entire course you can complete in just 20 hours. You can [https://sites.google.com/a/courses.tesc.edu/phi-130-critical-reasoning/ preview the open-source course here]. [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qZcAiOG9dZGQjlL_jK8oVTwhsLweq3TLWPYY1hzSAdc/edit Syllabus]
|3
|}

If you know of any additional "can't fail" courses, please feel free to add them to the table above along with why you feel like they should be included.