If you are like me, you look for ways to save money when attending college. Although most of us know to shop for used textbooks and test out of courses with CLEP exams, those of us with no military background may have little, if any, knowledge of DANTES/DSST exams.
Until recently, DANTES exams (now known as DSST exams) were only for military personnel. Lucky for us civilians, now we get to take advantage of these exams, too! Why is this a good thing? More choices, of course!
I stumbled onto this knowledge just this week when I was looking for a way to test out of my required Public Speaking course. My first choice was Portfolio credit (life experience credit) since I have extensive public speaking experience, but unfortunately, Columbia College doesn’t offer life experience credit for Public Speaking. They do, however, award credit for the DSST exam, Principles of Public Speaking. 
Since no CLEP exam exists for Speech/Public Speaking, you can see why looking into DANTES/DSST exams is a good thing!
UPDATE 3/31/08: I just received my score back on the DSST Public Speaking exam and I passed. Woo hoo! I highly recommend this exam to ANYONE wanting to test out of a required speech course. That said, check with your school first! Columbia College honors DANTES/DSST exam credit, but your institution might not.
DANTES exam / DSST exam subjects:
- Fundamentals of College Algebra
- Principles of Statistics
- Art of the Western World
- Western Europe Since 1945
- Introduction to the Modern Middle East
- Human/Cultural Geography
- Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
- A History of the Vietnam War
- The Civil War and Reconstruction
- Foundations of Education
- Lifespan Developmental Psychology
- General Anthropology
- Drug and Alcohol Abuse
- Introduction to Law Enforcement
- Criminal Justice
- Fundamentals of Counseling
- Principles of Finance
- Principles of Financial Accounting
- Human Resource Management
- Organizational Behavior
- Principles of Supervision
- Business Law II
- Introduction to Computing
- Introduction to Business
- Money and Banking
- Personal Finance
- Management Information Systems
- Business Mathematics
- Astronomy
- Here’s to Your Health
- Environment and Humanity: The Race to Save the Planet
- Principles of Physical Science I
- Physical Geology
- Technical Writing
- Ethics in America
- Introduction to World Religions
- Principles of Public Speaking
Related posts:
- CLEP exams: An “easy” way to earn college credit
- CLEP exams save time and money
- Life experience and online learning
- Illustrative example of how online learning credits may be awarded
- 10 Online colleges offering credit for life experience
Source: DSST exam website
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