Well...WGU it is...

Well I have finally made the decision to enroll and go ahead with the MS:ISA program at WGU. I had my reservations, but in the end I need the masters for the next step in my career and personal goals (check box marked). I have considered plenty of other schools and programs, but for the price and time I could not find anything that beat WGU. Hopefully I can find some areas challenging and gain some insight on topics I am interested in.

My goal will be to finish the degree in no more than two semesters; but I will shoot for one. I have a plan to dedicate about 4 hours a week day and about 5 hours on weekends for this challenge, but I do not know if I can hit the one semester mark. CEH and IH should not pose too much of a challenge and I will prob knock those out first thing.

Any study/strategic guidance that anyone can offer to tackle this project in one or two semesters would be greatly appreciated!

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Comments

cyberguypr

Can't go wrong with MSISA if priorities are low cost and just a personal check box. Exactly my situation. The key to success is making sense of the vague rubric and the even vaguer feedback you'll get from Taskstream. At least in my case course mentors have proven useless as in many occasions they have been unable to decipher Taskstream's feedback.

Having said that, I absolutely hate the program and have to convince myself every day to push through and finish it. Best of luck.

Cyberscum

So from what I understand you have to submit papers to "taskstream"? Once they get submitted they either approve it or not; If not they give recommendations on what to change>?

markulous

Cyberscum wrote: »

So from what I understand you have to submit papers to "taskstream"? Once they get submitted they either approve it or not; If not they give recommendations on what to change>?

Exactly. Usually they don't take too long to get back to you, but I've had a couple issues with them being vague or just flat out wrong when telling me to change something. E.g. they say fix this and go into detail on this, I do that and submit it, then they say no that's not right and tell me to do it again.

Cyberscum

markulous wrote: »

Exactly. Usually they don't take too long to get back to you, but I've had a couple issues with them being vague or just flat out wrong when telling me to change something. E.g. they say fix this and go into detail on this, I do that and submit it, then they say no that's not right and tell me to do it again.

Huh? OK, sounds like fun so far. Well we will see, that seems frustrating to say the least.

D113

Yes, you submit assignments on the Taskstream website. The assignments are then graded by an evaluator, who is separate from the course mentors and rest of the WGU staff. The confusion begins there, as the course mentors and evaluators have different ideas of what the assignment should contain.

There will be a set of recommended changes, but often the evaluator is lazy and gives you vague feedback. It seems as if they do not read the submissions sometimes. I have received papers that were rejected and supposedly needed multiple sections revised in order to pass. Resubmitting the assignment after changing only one sentence often resulted in a pass.

markulous

It was pretty frustrating. It was for one of the art/humanities classes and their feedback sucked for that essay. But it could have been worse, and like I said they were quick grading it, although that was only a 6 page essay.

Cyberscum

@D113&Mark

How many times can you resubmit things?

markulous

I believe you can submit it an infinite amount of times, although I'm not 100% sure on that. I never saw a limit and it was never communicated with me. I believe the essay I submitted was submitted probably 4 times.

xocity

https://web5.wgu.edu/aap/content/accessing%20performance%20assessments.html

Theres the resubmission policy.

kurosaki00

Only took first 3 classes so far in the MSISA program and usually by the 2nd time you submit your stuff is accepted (if you did your homework/fix).
Is not too hard.
Mentors are pretty useless and annoying.
Some professors are quite straight to the point on what they want on the papers (which is good).

Cyberscum

So lets say I cant do it in 4 attempts... disenrollment from the program?

For some reason I doubt they would do anything. Maybe put you on probation or something, but if they took you out of the program they would not collect anymore money...

markulous

xocity wrote: »

https://web5.wgu.edu/aap/content/accessing%20performance%20assessments.html

Theres the resubmission policy.

Interesting. Everyone I talked to didn't stress I can only submit it 4 times and made it seem like I can just keep doing it.

N2IT

GL

Can't beat the price, only 7 left to pay off the loan. Next week dropping another 1,000 on the loan amount. It really is a good deal.

Cyberscum

N2IT wrote: »

GL

Can't beat the price, only 7 left to pay off the loan. Next week dropping another 1,000 on the loan amount. It really is a good deal.

7K? how long have you been taking classes?

N2IT

It took me 14 months, they prorated the last 2 months to complete my capstone. I finished in 2013

*Correction is took me 16 months. Sorry about that.

Verruckt

Hah, nice, I'm starting July 1st on the MS:ISA myself.

Plan on finishing within 2 terms as well. Been in IT for 10+ years so looking to knock this out.

Cyberscum

Verruckt wrote: »

Hah, nice, I'm starting July 1st on the MS:ISA myself.

Plan on finishing within 2 terms as well. Been in IT for 10+ years so looking to knock this out.

Just got word I cant start until July 1 also. We should KIT and knock it out together!

xeruan

Best of luck, I begin my adventure on June 1 for the MS:ISA.

Mike-Mike

Cyberscum wrote: »

MS:ISA program at WGU. I had my reservations, but in the end I need the masters for the next step in my career and personal goals (check box marked). I have considered plenty of other schools and programs, but for the price and time I could not find anything that beat WGU.

That was my situation. I finished my Bachelors at WGU and figured i should immediately start the Masters or I would never do it. I wanted some diversity on my resume so I looked around at a LOT of schools, and nothing can really beat the WGU combo.

I just completed mine last month and it feels great. About 75% of the way through, I was ready to quit, but I kept on, and I'm glad I did.

I always felt like needing to check that box is stupid. But now that I can check that box, it feels pretty good.

da_vato

I'm a bit late in responding but I wanted to touch on an early aspect of this discussion.

When your grader gives arbitrary feedback and the course mentor is unsure of what is meant either, the mentor can submit a challenge on your behalf with their reasoning.

I had to do this on one assignment and it was accepted after. I felt very strongly that I met the requirements and the feedback did not reflect the submission. I say this to say there is a way to challenge the system if you feel there is an inconsistency amongst the WGU staff.

These frustrations are not isolated to WGU however, a few of my friends plus my boss have frustrating issues like inconsistency in their graduate studies at different schools.

da_vato

@Cyberscum, I forgot to congratulate you on finally pursuing your masters and getting accepted.

nathandrake

Cyberscum wrote: »

So lets say I cant do it in 4 attempts... disenrollment from the program?

For some reason I doubt they would do anything. Maybe put you on probation or something, but if they took you out of the program they would not collect anymore money...

I think that info from that page is a little misleading. What happens is if you can't pass it on the 4th attempt, then it gets locked out and you're forced to talk with the course mentor to see where you're going wrong before you can attempt to submit it again. The course mentor has to unlock it for you.

As far as what everyone else is saying, luckily I haven't had that many issues with the graders in taskstream being that vague. When I do get something sent back, it's pretty clear what I need to fix and I always get it accepted the second attempt.

The only class I've had issues where taskstream graders were being vague is VLT2. Not only are they vague, they also contradict each other. I'm on my final task for this course. If I can get it done this week, then this course only took me 2 1/2 weeks, so nothing too bad. The course mentor for VLT2 has been very helpful with deciphering what the graders were actually looking for. This is the only course mentor I've had to use, so I don't know how helpful other course mentors are. I'm two classes away from finishing.

aspiringsoul

I'm having a good experience so far.

No regrets. It is a very good investment for the cost.