GET STARTED, PART 23/5/2014: Please be advised TESC has announced they are discontinuing acceptance of FEMA credits.
Let's start with the free credits. You like free credits, right? That sounds pretty good! If you're considering going to TESC or COSC, you can earn free credits through FEMA's Independent Study program. Thomas Edison State College and Charter Oak State College accept these courses for free credits, transferred straight from FEMA. This means you take the courses for free and then once you've enrolled in either school, you can request to have your transcript sent directly to the college - also for free. Nice, huh? |
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Other schools may or may not take the FEMA credits. If you are using a school other than TESC or COSC, you can pay to have the courses transcribed either through Frederick Community College or Clackamus Community College. (Clackamus is cheaper.) But before you do that, make SURE your college of choice will accept them. Clackmus charges $25/$30 (in-state for Oregon/out-of-state) per course. If you were to do all the courses below, for instance, and send them to CCC, you would be paying $1020 for 30 credits. Again, you only want to pay to do this if YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE your college of choice will take them and they will fit within your degree plan.
The list of approved FEMA courses for TESC is as follows (each course is worth one credit, except those which require two courses in order to earn the one credit):
1) IS-1: Emergency Manager, An Orientation to the Position (No longer available.) IS-1.a can be found here for students planning to enroll at Charter Oak or use one of the community colleges above for credits.
2) IS-3: Radiological Emergency Management
3) IS-5.a: An Introduction to Hazardous Materials
4) IS-7: A Citizen's Guide to Disaster Assistance
5) IS-8.a: Building for the Earthquakes of Tomorrow
6) IS-10.a: Animals in Disaster, Module A: Awareness and Preparedness, PLUS IS-11.a: Animals in Disaster, Module B: Community Planning (both courses equal one credit)
7) IS-22: Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness, PLUS IS-55.a: Household Hazardous Materials - A Guide for Citizens (both courses equal one credit)
8) IS-120.a: An Introduction to Exercises, PLUS IS-130: Exercise Evaluation and Improvement Planning (both courses equal one credit)
9) IS-139: Exercise Design
10) IS-208.a: State Disaster Management
11) IS-230.c: Fundamentals of Emergency Management
12) IS-235.b: Emergency Planning
13) IS-240.a: Leadership & Influence
14) IS-241.a: Decision Making & Problem Solving
15) IS-242.a: Effective Communication
16) IS-244.a: Developing and Managing Volunteers
17) IS-253.a: Overview of FEMA's Environmental and Historic Preservation Review
18) IS-271.a: Anticipating Hazardous Weather & Community Risk
19) IS-279: Engineering Principles and Practices for Retrofitting Flood-Prone Residential Structures
20) IS-288: The Role of Voluntary Agencies in Emergency Management
21) IS-301: Radiological Emergency Response
22) IS-302: Modular Emergency Radiological Response Transportation Training
23) IS-324.a: Community Hurricane Preparedness
24) IS-331: Introduction to Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Exercise Evaluation
25) IS-340: Hazardous Materials Prevention
26) IS-346: An Orientation to Hazardous Materials for Medical Personnel
27) IS-386: Introduction to Residential Coastal Construction
28) IS-393.a: Introduction to Hazard Mitigation
29) IS-394.a: Protecting Your Home or Small Business From Disaster
30) IS-701.a: NIMS Multi-agency Coordination System (MACS) Course, PLUS IS-755: EOC Management and Operations (both courses equal one credit)
There seems to be some question about the number of credits TESC now accepts from FEMA. Unless you are majoring in Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in previous years, you could get up to 25 FEMA credits, all applied to your free electives. I have read on another forum that the new course catalog says you can get up to 30 credits, and several people have been repeating this. I read the catalog itself, though, and to me, what it says could be taken that way, but what I think it means is that there are 30 credits total (those listed above) that you can choose from - not that the policy changed and that you can actually get all 30 credits. In any case, with the exception of the Homeland Security major, you only have 27 free elective credits to work with, and sometimes even less, and this is where FEMA credits are applied.
If you want to use the FEMA credits, you complete a course and take the exam. If you pass, you will get an email letting you know, plus a digital copy of a certificate stating you passed. You can complete as many as you like. Then, when you apply to TESC or COSC, use the form on the FEMA site to request your transcript and have it sent to the school. It's as easy as that. Generally, each course takes about 2 - 3 hours to finish, including taking the exam.
Some things to note:
1. When my husband requested the most up-to-date list of accepted courses, he was told this was the final list - that TESC was no longer going to be evaluating FEMA courses for credits. The advisor also said - and this is important - this meant they would NOT be taking any of the updated courses after this point. So, if the approved list says IS-139 and that course is eventually replaced with IS-139.a, anyone who took IS-139 could still get credit for it, but anyone who took IS-139.a would not. This means if you'll be using TESC as your school of choice, even if you only think you might use the FEMAs, you should probably start taking them sooner rather than later. It also means, as far as I can tell, that as courses are updated (or even dropped as sometimes happens) from the FEMA website, the potential free FEMA credits you can earn will gradually shrink until eventually there won't be any left. Now, take this with a grain of salt, because TESC advisors have been known in the past to give out conflicting information on occasion. Still, consider this all likely to be true and act accordingly if you want to include FEMA as part of your credits. (Also, yes, there are some courses listed above that end in a ".a" or ".b" - which indicates they are revised courses. Those specific courses have been approved for credit. It's any changes from here on out that won't be.)
2. Charter Oak has only fairly recently begun accepting FEMA credits directly from FEMA. You can take as many as can fit into your degree plan, as long as you've got all the other requirements met, such as 30 upper-level credits, your area-of-study credits, and all the general education courses you need.
3. These FEMA courses are BORING. (With my apologies to anyone with an actual interest in the subject matter. For any of you - you go, you future emergency managers, you!) For those not majoring in emergency management, I really only recommend them to people who absolutely need the cost savings. Yes, you really do learn some things, and some of it may actually prove useful to you, especially in the household hazards course and the citizens' guide to disaster assistance. On the other hand, unless you are a farmer, you probably won't ever use the information on handling livestock in an emergency.
There's another recent addition to the free credits market. Saylor.org has partnered up with a handful of schools (including the Big Three) and the NCCRS to award credits for their courses. Right now, three courses have received approval. You can complete these free courses and take an exam for credit (3 credits for each). The exam must be proctored. You can pay to have this done through ProctorU, or find a local, approved proctor. The list of potential proctors includes your local public librarian. You can ask at your library if they provide this service. We have two in our area that do so. One charges a small fee, but one does so for free. If you are able to use a free proctor like this, you can earn up to 9 credits totally for free, and the great thing is, these aren't just credits that can only go in your "free electives" section of your degree. You can use these for some of your general education credits or possibly even your area of study depending on what your major is. Also? If you fail an exam, you can take it again after a 14-day waiting period.
Currently, the approved courses are:
Corporate Communication
Business Law and Ethics
Introduction to Western Political Thought
How awesome is that? Hopefully more courses will be added to this list soon.
Now let's look at some other low-cost options for earning college credits...
The list of approved FEMA courses for TESC is as follows (each course is worth one credit, except those which require two courses in order to earn the one credit):
1) IS-1: Emergency Manager, An Orientation to the Position (No longer available.) IS-1.a can be found here for students planning to enroll at Charter Oak or use one of the community colleges above for credits.
2) IS-3: Radiological Emergency Management
3) IS-5.a: An Introduction to Hazardous Materials
4) IS-7: A Citizen's Guide to Disaster Assistance
5) IS-8.a: Building for the Earthquakes of Tomorrow
6) IS-10.a: Animals in Disaster, Module A: Awareness and Preparedness, PLUS IS-11.a: Animals in Disaster, Module B: Community Planning (both courses equal one credit)
7) IS-22: Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness, PLUS IS-55.a: Household Hazardous Materials - A Guide for Citizens (both courses equal one credit)
8) IS-120.a: An Introduction to Exercises, PLUS IS-130: Exercise Evaluation and Improvement Planning (both courses equal one credit)
9) IS-139: Exercise Design
10) IS-208.a: State Disaster Management
11) IS-230.c: Fundamentals of Emergency Management
12) IS-235.b: Emergency Planning
13) IS-240.a: Leadership & Influence
14) IS-241.a: Decision Making & Problem Solving
15) IS-242.a: Effective Communication
16) IS-244.a: Developing and Managing Volunteers
17) IS-253.a: Overview of FEMA's Environmental and Historic Preservation Review
18) IS-271.a: Anticipating Hazardous Weather & Community Risk
19) IS-279: Engineering Principles and Practices for Retrofitting Flood-Prone Residential Structures
20) IS-288: The Role of Voluntary Agencies in Emergency Management
21) IS-301: Radiological Emergency Response
22) IS-302: Modular Emergency Radiological Response Transportation Training
23) IS-324.a: Community Hurricane Preparedness
24) IS-331: Introduction to Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Exercise Evaluation
25) IS-340: Hazardous Materials Prevention
26) IS-346: An Orientation to Hazardous Materials for Medical Personnel
27) IS-386: Introduction to Residential Coastal Construction
28) IS-393.a: Introduction to Hazard Mitigation
29) IS-394.a: Protecting Your Home or Small Business From Disaster
30) IS-701.a: NIMS Multi-agency Coordination System (MACS) Course, PLUS IS-755: EOC Management and Operations (both courses equal one credit)
There seems to be some question about the number of credits TESC now accepts from FEMA. Unless you are majoring in Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in previous years, you could get up to 25 FEMA credits, all applied to your free electives. I have read on another forum that the new course catalog says you can get up to 30 credits, and several people have been repeating this. I read the catalog itself, though, and to me, what it says could be taken that way, but what I think it means is that there are 30 credits total (those listed above) that you can choose from - not that the policy changed and that you can actually get all 30 credits. In any case, with the exception of the Homeland Security major, you only have 27 free elective credits to work with, and sometimes even less, and this is where FEMA credits are applied.
If you want to use the FEMA credits, you complete a course and take the exam. If you pass, you will get an email letting you know, plus a digital copy of a certificate stating you passed. You can complete as many as you like. Then, when you apply to TESC or COSC, use the form on the FEMA site to request your transcript and have it sent to the school. It's as easy as that. Generally, each course takes about 2 - 3 hours to finish, including taking the exam.
Some things to note:
1. When my husband requested the most up-to-date list of accepted courses, he was told this was the final list - that TESC was no longer going to be evaluating FEMA courses for credits. The advisor also said - and this is important - this meant they would NOT be taking any of the updated courses after this point. So, if the approved list says IS-139 and that course is eventually replaced with IS-139.a, anyone who took IS-139 could still get credit for it, but anyone who took IS-139.a would not. This means if you'll be using TESC as your school of choice, even if you only think you might use the FEMAs, you should probably start taking them sooner rather than later. It also means, as far as I can tell, that as courses are updated (or even dropped as sometimes happens) from the FEMA website, the potential free FEMA credits you can earn will gradually shrink until eventually there won't be any left. Now, take this with a grain of salt, because TESC advisors have been known in the past to give out conflicting information on occasion. Still, consider this all likely to be true and act accordingly if you want to include FEMA as part of your credits. (Also, yes, there are some courses listed above that end in a ".a" or ".b" - which indicates they are revised courses. Those specific courses have been approved for credit. It's any changes from here on out that won't be.)
2. Charter Oak has only fairly recently begun accepting FEMA credits directly from FEMA. You can take as many as can fit into your degree plan, as long as you've got all the other requirements met, such as 30 upper-level credits, your area-of-study credits, and all the general education courses you need.
3. These FEMA courses are BORING. (With my apologies to anyone with an actual interest in the subject matter. For any of you - you go, you future emergency managers, you!) For those not majoring in emergency management, I really only recommend them to people who absolutely need the cost savings. Yes, you really do learn some things, and some of it may actually prove useful to you, especially in the household hazards course and the citizens' guide to disaster assistance. On the other hand, unless you are a farmer, you probably won't ever use the information on handling livestock in an emergency.
There's another recent addition to the free credits market. Saylor.org has partnered up with a handful of schools (including the Big Three) and the NCCRS to award credits for their courses. Right now, three courses have received approval. You can complete these free courses and take an exam for credit (3 credits for each). The exam must be proctored. You can pay to have this done through ProctorU, or find a local, approved proctor. The list of potential proctors includes your local public librarian. You can ask at your library if they provide this service. We have two in our area that do so. One charges a small fee, but one does so for free. If you are able to use a free proctor like this, you can earn up to 9 credits totally for free, and the great thing is, these aren't just credits that can only go in your "free electives" section of your degree. You can use these for some of your general education credits or possibly even your area of study depending on what your major is. Also? If you fail an exam, you can take it again after a 14-day waiting period.
Currently, the approved courses are:
Corporate Communication
Business Law and Ethics
Introduction to Western Political Thought
How awesome is that? Hopefully more courses will be added to this list soon.
Now let's look at some other low-cost options for earning college credits...
