Looking for help picking a university? (History major)

Transfer Students
1

Ok so a little background. I’m a very non-traditional student. I’m 30 years old and a police officer for the last 10 years. I began taking classes at my local community college about four years ago as I have realized I do not want to make a 30+ year career out of law enforcement. My passion is history (specifically medieval and warfare), always has been, and I’m finally deciding to make that the focus of my professional life (or at least one day down the line). Problem is money isn’t free and my schedule as an officer makes attending school, especially day school, virtually impossible. I have already dropped numerous classes throughout my community college career due to my job and had to retake them, as a result my transcript has tons of lovely W’s, but also A’s and B’s.

I want to know what would be a good school to attend? My local university is San Diego State, and a little further off is CSU San Marcos. I have heavily researched online universities and while I understand they are not respected what other choice do I have? The ones I have put the most looking into are Troy University and Southern New Hampshire University. Both have undergraduate history degree programs that are online and appear to accept my 70 or so semester hours of general ed I have completed.

So what does everyone think? Find a way to take maybe a class or two a semester at SDSU for the next 5 years (10 years for a bachelor’s degree), or give in and go for the “best” online degree I can get?

2

Because you have a specific goal of changing careers, it might be helpful to start at the other end: once you have a BA in History, what do you want to do with it? Is the goal to get a BA to make you eligible for a broader range of jobs, and history is the most interesting major to you, or do you want to do something related to history, such as teach or do research? If the goal is to get into history as a career you need to think through post-graduate studies, as most will require at least certification (teaching at the high school level) if not a Masters or PhD.

If the goal is to just get a BA so that you can apply for jobs that require one, then an online one will do the job very well- but the quality of online programs varies a LOT. I am not a huge fan of USNWR rankings for regular undergraduate, but for online their focus is on delivery to students 25+ with some college already completed, which is you. The methodology specifically considers

If you look at the USNWR ranking of online degrees ([here](http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/bachelors/rankings)), you will see a lot of very credible universities. An online degree from Penn State or Arizona would trump a bricks-and-mortar degree from CSU San Marcos (imo).