CSM is designed for people who are scared of math!

Most people think of themselves as bad at math, and worry that passing college math would be impossible. If this describes you, CSM might be your path to a college degree! CSM satisfies the general education math requirements for an associate degree across West Virginia, and is the most supportive path to math credit.

There's no algebra in CSM - it's focused on a type of math called "quantitative reasoning". CSM helps you deeply understand math that you can use every day in school, college, work and life. CSM has built-in support down to 4th grade math skills, and it uses your progress through the course to chart a path that's uniquely personalized to what you need to work on.

CSM is extremely patient - you work on each skill until you really know it before you move on, and there's no failing CSM -- it just takes some people longer than others. Students tell us how awesome it feels to finally really understand math!

Yes! CSM is aligned with GED

If you don't have a high school equivalency, CSM can serve as the major part of preparation for the GED and ehlp you get your high school diploma online. Click here to learn how you can take CSM as preparation for the GED.

Nationally, many, many people who have not graduated from high school -- including many who have tried and failed to earn their high school equivalency more than once -- have completed CSM. Don't let your fear hold you back -- give CSM a try!

CSM builds your belief in yourself

Social scientists have found that the single-most important factor in personal success (in school, college, work and life) is self-efficacy, which is your belief in your ability to succeed at what you try. Self-efficacy keeps you persisting even when times are tough. When you get a bad grade in college, for example, it's easy to take this to mean that you're not cut out for a degree and drop out. With self-efficacy, you can realize that everyone has bad days, but you've got what it takes and push through to eventually graduate.

Self-efficacy is not just confidence -- you have to earn it! Self-efficacy is developed by succeeding at something hard, so that you actually know how to be successful, and how good it feels.

CSM is designed to develop your self-efficacy - it will definitely be a challenge! But it also has tons of built-in supports and encouragement to build your skills and ensure you succeed. As you work through CSM, you'll see yourself learning skills that even many college graduates can't do. The skills you learn are hard for almost everyone, and earning your CSM Certificate is an accomplishment you'll be able to look back on with pride, and know that if you can do CSM, the world is open to you.

Yes, CSM works!

CSM builds math and literacy skills

In a national study comparing CSM to other online educational technology, CSM had across the board the largest math gains, the largest literacy gains, and the highest student engagement.

CSM improves scores on workforce tests

Passing rates on the CAST test (needed for good jobs in the energy industry) rose from 20% to 67% following implementation of CSM (report from the Center for Energy Workforce Development)

CSM builds college confidence and improves college completion

In a program in Cleveland, OH for adults seeking a high school diploma, 28% of students that completed CSM registered for associate degree programs, and nearly 80% have graduated or are on track to graduate - other adult diploma sites did not see students attending college, let alone graduating.

CSM helps in a job

In an employee upskilling program at a health insurance company, over 95% of people said that CSM was enjoyable, made them better at their job, and made them more prepared and excited for further education. The employees were almost evenly spilt between those with high school diplomas, with associate degrees, with bachelor's degrees, and with advanced degrees!

Free CSM, or an expensive college class?

When you send a transcript of your CSM Certificate to any college in the West Virginia Community and Technical College System or at WVU, it will be accepted as three credit hours of math. This means that you will need to take one fewer course at the college to get your degree, which depending on your college, will save you $400-$600 (at WVU, it's $1000)!

But you might save even more than that! Most students in West Virginia need to take at least one development education (remediation) class before starting with college-level work. So in addition to saving you the money for your math class, you might also save money (and a ton of time!) from skipping developmental math. Ka-ching!

About half of all students fail college math the first time they take it! Why do we think you'll be more successful with CSM?

• CSM won't let you fail - no matter how long it takes you to finish CSM, it will be there waiting to support you.
• CSM has built-in remediation - as you work on CSM, it learns where your strengths are and where you need more support, and seamlessly fills in math gaps down to 4th grade math
• CSM doesn't have algebra! CSM teaches a different type of college-level math called quantitative reasoning, which is deep, comfortable knowledge of how to use non-algebra math in complex, real-world problems and situations. Your eyes will be opened to how math shows up in our lives, and you'll surprise yourself by thinking mathematically in your everyday life and in your career.

A majority of incoming community college students are placed into "developmental education" (a fancy name for remedial education), mostly in math. This means that you need to spend one or more semesters doing classes that don't get college credit before you can even start the college-level classes that interest you -- but it still eats up your government college grant money. Even worse, on average, every developmental education class a student takes, there is only a 50% chance that they register for the next semester. If you have to take 2 developmental education classes, that means that there is only a 25% chance that you'll eventually register for regular classes. If you will need developmental education:

• CSM will speed up your college graduation by one or more semesters
• CSM save you $400-600 per course of developmental education
• CSM will vastly increase your chances of graduating from college -- you will enter college with your math in the rearview mirror

CSM is accepted both in WV colleges and national online colleges

See Using Your CSM Certificate for the list of colleges in West Virginia that accept CSM for college math credit -- this will include the community and technical colleges, and WVU (we are expecting additional WV 4-year colleges shortly). You can also send a transcript to any college or university to be evaluated for credit, and CSM also gets guaranteed credit at many prominent online colleges for accelerated degrees, such as Southern New Hampshire University, Thomas Edison State University, Excelsior University.

The credit earned by CSM is called credit for prior-learning, or CPL (sometimes PLA, for prior-learning assessment) -- it is treated by the schools as transfer credit.

General education requirements are a baseline for all degrees

Almost all colleges have general education requirements to ensure that all of their graduates have a broad base of skills in a variety of areas, like communications, mathematics, and humanities. All students must take a certain number of credits in each of these areas to graduate, no matter what their major is. On top of the general education requirements, students must take certain courses in their major, and sometime a certain number of free electives, which are classes of their choice.

CSM satisfies the general education math requirements at all colleges in the West Virginia Community and Technical College system, as well as at West Virginia Univeristy / WVU. Many majors (including English, Criminal Justice, Graphic Arts, and many others) do not require additional math classes, so CSM is all the math you need to get a degree!

Other majors in technical fields do require additional math courses. If your major does require more math, CSM can count as an elective course, and also prepares you well for algebra or other math.

You can figure out the requirements for your major by going to your college's website and looking for the College Catalog or Academic Programs, or by contacting the Admissions Office.

Answer 1: Math

There are many reasons for stopping-out of college, but the primary academic reason is math. One-half of all college students fail college math the first time.

• If you were at a college in West Virginia that accepts CSM for math credit (which includes all community and technical colleges), CSM is a free path (including the college credit) to complete your math requirement so that you can go to the classes like graphic design or criminal justice or substance abuse counseling that you went to college for.
• If you were in a college/program that doesn't accept CSM for math credit, CSM is a way to build foundational math skills that will allow you to tackle a more conventional math class. Alternatively, you may be able to transfer your classes to a college that does accept CSM for math credit, and complete your program there.

Answer 2: College skills

College is in some ways a multi-year test of your ability to learn, and to learn more on your own. Many people did not learn these skills in high school, and are then thrown into a rigorous college environment they're not prepared for. CSM is not just a math course, but it's also a course in High Performance skills like learning mindsets and strategies, persistence, and attention to detail -- these are general college completion skills.

You may have an associate degree, but want a bachelor's, or have a bachelor's and want to get an advanced degree, but you're concerned with your ability to be successful going back to school. Perhaps it's been 20 years since you took a class, or maybe you're thinking of moving from a non-technical field to a more technical field. In most of these cases, CSM will help you build the right skills and your confidence.

• If you've been out of school for years, CSM is a challenging, yet supportive course that builds education success skills. For example, you have to learn all the skills on your own, and the only passing score is 100% on mainly fill-in-the-blank questions. At the same time, CSM and your personal coach will be working on your independent learning skills, your attention to detail and persistence, and your intention to knock it out of the ballpark, using the world's most-advanced personalized learning system.
• If you're moving from a less-technical to more-technical field, CSM develops deep quantitative reasoning skills, built on mental math and estimation, units, solving complex problems, and other areas that will build a foundation for any rigorous, advanced coursework.

In an employee upskilling program at a health insurance company, over 95% of people said that CSM was enjoyable, made them better at their job, and made them more prepared and excited for further education. The employees were almost evenly spilt between those with high school diplomas, with associate degrees, with bachelor's degrees, and with advanced degrees! Within a month of completing CSM, one person signed up for a PhD program, and another for a law degree.

Unsolicited testimonial from the Manager of Compliance Audit at a healthcase insurance company (with a masters degree)

My first impression based on the information session and then the introductory material was that the course would be heavy on math skills. Instant anxiety!

There were times that I wanted to quit because my frustration level was rising.  There were problems that seemed so obvious but for whatever reason were escaping any effort at solution…  What I learned was that I need to slow down, gather as much information as possible regarding what I’m being asked to solve, proceed with caution and check my work.  

So what did those hours of jotting notes, reaching for my calculator and then realizing I wasn’t supposed to or didn’t need to use it if I just thought about the problem, and the moments of wanting to give up teach me?  That I can overcome fear and anxiety, that I’m not a quitter when the going gets tough, that the skills presented and on which we are challenged involve both soft and concrete skills.  I learned about math but I also learned about my own personality.  I learned about logic, but I also learned about my own patience (or lack of at times)... Any time I concluded I was ‘smarter’ than the problem in front of me, I found that I wasn’t. It’s not about smarts – it’s about utilizing our skills and trusting that we can slug our way through a tough spot.

I enjoyed the self-paced tempo and like that it was on my time, in my space and that I could stop at any point and always return to the last place I stopped.  It’s designed to be user friendly, the graphics are easy, the information thorough.

Thanks for the challenge!

Answer 1: CSM will help you in any job

CSM's High Performance skills are needed:

• in all jobs in all industry sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture and retail.
• in all jobs, whether working outdoors with your hands or working behind a desk, and whether frontline or as a manager

Employers consistently indicate that CSM's High Performance skills (strong math and professional literacy, the ability to learn new skills on your own, persistence, attention to detail, and an intention to excel) are even more important than job-specific skills.

Answer 2: CSM skills will help with promotions

With promotions to supervisory or managerial jobs, you need more skills in math, memo reading and writing, interpreting data, learning new procedures, and more. These are skills that CSM will help you with.

Answer 3: CSM skills are "transferable"

Entire industries are growing and dying in unprecedented numbers, and this is likely to increase over the next years. And the skills needed for jobs will change. Because CSM's skills are useful in ALL jobs, CSM will help you adjust to changes -- whether it's moving to a new employer, starting a new occupation, or getting "reskilled" with new technology.

Answer 4: CSM builds confidence to tackle more training

To succeed over a lifetime career, building your skills repeatedly is essential. Yet, according to a recent national survey, half of all adults don't think that they can benefit from vocational training or college that occurs after high school.  This is because so many people struggled in high school, and school left them feeling "less than", as Brittany, a high school dropout from Charleston, expressed her feelings.

CSM, on the other hand, is specifically designed to improve a person's "self-efficacy", the deeply-held self-confidence that comes from experiencing success. Almost a third of high school dropouts who took CSM in Cleveland signed up on their own for associate degree programs at the local community college. After taking CSM, over 95% of 4-year college graduates said that they felt more prepared and excited about tackling advanced degrees and training!

And after completing CSM, Brittany is on the dean's list at BridgeValley Community and Technical College!

The list of employers is expanding

Excel Together West Virginia is endorsed by business and industry associations representing tens of thousands of workers in the state. You can see the list of participating employers and information about how to add CSM to your resume at on the Using a CSM Certificate page.