Is there a way to take college courses after you earned a bachelors degree?
I’m thinking about doing a masters in computer science or statistics but, I haven’t taken calculus 1,2, multivariate and linear algebra. My concern is that taking these courses as a non-degree student may not be compelling enough for grad schools. It has also come to my attention that many non-degree students don’t receive letter grades but, rather pass and fail grades. Is this really true? I noticed that a lot of post-bachelor programs don’t offer any courses in calculus 1.
I was also wondering if grad schools accept community college courses such as calculus 1,2, and 3. I would think that it wouldn’t matter much since math is pretty much the same anywhere but I could be wrong.
So any feedback would be great and if you do know any post-bachelor programs that offer calculus 1, please kindly list them thank you in advance.
My son took physics at Arizona State last summer as a non-degree student to satisfy an undergraduate prerequisite at Iowa State. He received a letter grade. BTW, summers are a great time to take classes like these because you can take two semesters’ worth of classes in one summer session.
Indeed. On the west coast, each UC campus offers an extension program which provides many full credit courses. On the other coast, Harvard extension does the same. (Just two examples.)
Other Unis, like Arizona State, offer plenty of online courses.
Just out of curiosity, OP, why Comp Sci? If you are a quant-type, how’d you get out of college without even taking Calc 1? (AP/IB credits?)
Doesn’t Stat require quite a few more quant courses, other than the maths that you have listed?
Most colleges and universities have provisions that allow you take courses in a non-degree status. There are often restrictions on the total number of credits that can be taken this way and limitations on available courses (so that you are not denying a degree-candidate a seat) but this is routine.
They don’t care about your status at the time of the course, just the grade and other evidence that you learned the material.
It depends on the school, the student, and the reason for taking it. Those who elect to take a course on pass/fail generally do so because it isn’t relevant to their actual program or because they are not expecting to use that part of their transcript in any formal way. If you want to get into grad school, take the letter-grade option, and if the school does not offer it, grad programs will accept the pass/fail (but pretty much only in this circumstance).
Why would they? It is not a post-bachelor course!
They don’t generally care but I am sure exceptions exist. I suspect it would only be an issue if they saw other additional reasons to doubt your mathematics skills.
I don’t think there are any, per se. The course in question is a prerequisite of a prerequisite of a course that would normally represent the bare minimum they would consider in a candidate. They expect you to have taken the course well before arriving, so why would they make it available? Remember that most graduate programs will not accept a candidate who requires more than a semester to get to the “starting” coursework of the program. You appear to be at least 3 semesters away from graduate studies in the indicated fields, and I cannot think of any programs that take students who are that deficient in their preparation.
Yes you can earn letter grades and corresponding credits for college courses as a nondegree student. I think being able to take a certain number of courses as a nondegree student (usually a max of three or four) is made available primarily for the reason you need to do it, to take prerequisites that you don’t already have on your transcript.