WGU's BS in Security, Start Date: August 1, Goal: 70CU in 1 Term

So after 2 years of contemplating, I've decided to bite the bullet and enroll in WGU. I've loved following these threads over the years and have decided to add my own adventure to track personal progress and hold myself accountable. Hopefully during my progress, someone will be motivated as have I in the past by these kinds of threads.

Classes to complete (in no particular order):

Course : CU's

College Algebra 4
Critical Thinking and Logic 3
Intro to IT 4
IT Foundations 4
IT Applications 4
Web Dev Fundamentals 3
Script/Program Foundations 3
Script/Program Applications 4
Network/Security Applications 4
Data Management Applications 4
Fundamentals Interconnecting Devices 6
Interconnecting Network Devices 6
Designing Customized Security 6
Business IT Project Management 4
Principles of Management 4
Technical Writing 3
IT Capstone 4

Total CU's required: 70

My goal is to complete these in one term and then enrolling into a Masters program right after in January 2016. Given that my requirements include certifications/topics for which I have studied for in the past but never took the exam for(A+, Project+, Security+, some CCENT), I certainly believe that at least initially I can run through much of what's left. I'm lucky enough to work full time at a place that affords me the time and space to easily put in at least 2-3 hours a day of study time at work and I plan to really take advantage of this. I'm open to any advice from current or former students as I hit the round running come the 15th of July... super excited here goes nothing!

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goatama

Nyblizzard wrote: »

Fundamentals Interconnecting Devices 6
Interconnecting Network Devices 6
Designing Customized Security 6

Those @#$%ers. I got 3 CUs each for those classes.

Oh well.

Best of luck, man!! Definitely keep posting here, the board is big on WGU encouragement. 70 CUs in 6 months is gonna be rough, but if you can actually manage to stick to 2-3 hours a day, every day, and not get burned out, you'll be golden.

Codyy

Are those really worth 6 each now? I'm switching from BS:IT to IT Sec starting July 1st and thought those classes were 3 or 4 each. WGU keeps changing courses so much that I'm going to have 150 credits and still no degree. My degree plan some how shows 102/135 completed, still trying to figure out that one since the degree requires 124 to graduate.

techfiend

Unless your brain is a sponge or you work with cisco regularly I think you might need 5+ hours a day on average to accomplish this. I'm doing about 4 per day and I'll be lucky to complete 52 CU's the first term. It's definitively doable though dark3d just finish 90+ CU's in 5 months. Starting work on another course while waiting for things helps. One thing I don't do but a lot of fast trackers do is take the pre-tests first, study your weak points, and test is often a time saver.

They are 6 CU's and it probably makes sense, they are more involved and usually take longer than the comptia tests which are 4 CU's. The 2 linux+ courses are changing from 3 to 4 CU's.

Dakinggamer87

Awesome looking forward to your progress!!

Mike-Mike

unless you are paying out of pocket, I dont think the 70 CUs in one semester is worth it. You really aren't going to learn that much, because you wont be looking at learing you'll just be trying to get done as quickly as possible.

On top of that, if you get an employer who is not familiar with WGU, they see your resume and you completed your degree in six months. They will think WGU is a degree mill.

Doing the whole thing in 1 year is very doable, and allows you more time to relax and enjoy life and learning

techfiend

I agree it will probably be a better education if they aim for a year. Unless he recently finished another degree will companies ever know how long the degree took? I only put completed year on resumes.

Mike-Mike

techfiend wrote: »

Unless he recently finished another degree will companies ever know how long the degree took? I only put completed year on resumes.

interesting, on my resume I have both the start and end dates. However most job applications I see also want a start and end date. Even my most recent background check asked for it, and then wanted confirmation

Danielm7

That's interesting, I've never had an application ask for start and end dates for college. I don't even list my graduation date on my resume.

Mitechniq

I'm all about taking advantage of WGU's unique program but doesn't this style of thinking lower the schools standards and its respect for its degrees. This no longer is a pursuit of education but a pursuit for a paper, which makes it no different than all the other schools we frown upon.

Chitownjedi

Mitechniq wrote: »

I'm all about taking advantage of WGU's unique program but doesn't this style of thinking lower the schools standards and its respect for its degrees. This no longer is a pursuit of education but a pursuit for a paper, which makes it no different than all the other schools we frown upon.

I think it highlights someone drive, ambition, and dedication more so then it hurting the school's rep. I had 53cu's going in and wanted to do 1 term... Its a lot of work... just the 12cu's i've gotten so far.... I could probably have 6 cu's more if I pushed through the weeks where it was very hard to keep going, especially when I already was putting in 30+hours a week.

ON another note, my sister enrolled in an online university for a Masters in management and quit in 2 weeks. Said that she needed to go to a brick and mortar sight, have an actual teacher walk her through things.... and that is the general feeling from most people I know...

WGU would be the worst system imaginable for them, because they can barely organize themselves getting out of bed in the morning, let alone the planning to handle a WGU type program and accelerate... So I say do as much as you can.... hell I almost dropped out at 8cu's because the idea of me having to churn through Algebra|Statistics|English| and some of the other courses after doing 3 straight business courses made me literally want to stop... but my mentor convinced me to stay and now I have SAP% and about 4 1/3 months left to do as much as I can... I may get it, may end up 12cu's short... but setting a goal and going forward is a measure of progress.. just don't be too down if you realize it may not happen.

*Note* I've also never seen or had to list start and endates for education. I've only used graduation year and haven't had any issues with it.

Mike-Mike

Danielm7 wrote: »

That's interesting, I've never had an application ask for start and end dates for college. I don't even list my graduation date on my resume.

my most recent background check wanted start date, end date, and actual graduation date

Danielm7

Mike-Mike wrote: »

my most recent background check wanted start date, end date, and actual graduation date

Sounds silly, just pointless data really. I can't see them hiring someone based upon your college dates.

Chitownjedi

Danielm7 wrote: »

Sounds silly, just pointless data really. I can't see them hiring someone based upon your college dates.

I find that it can be used to age discriminate. Honestly people make decisions based off that type of stuff a lot, everyone is biased in one way or another. Just like listing your address on your resume, some folks told me that they don't call people outside of 20 miles of the position because they feel that it would be tougher to get people to commute (Now if that is logical or a wise thing to do is a different story) but people use things all the time to inform their decisions.

So it might not be used to hire someone, but it could be used not to hire someone.

EngRob

Good luck NYBlizzard. It's definitely aggressive but others have done it.

Nyblizzard

Thanks for the support everyone and just to address the concerns in doing this, the 2/3 hour study time estimate is just how much time I can work on things at work. I will of course put in a lot more time after hours and on the weekends, especially when I see/feel the progress.

I see the value in the competency based system WGU has. I have very specific near future-ish career goals that I am jump-starting by completing this degree and hopefully a Masters by June 1st 2016. I am not too worried about the workload as I have experience with things on the list, and I'm only really worried about the Networking stuff as I have the least experience there. I've done many years of school programming and Web Dev (dating back to Highschool), but wasn't able to transfer due to the 5 year rule. I've studied enough of the COMPTIA certifications listed that I know it shouldn't take me more than a month to complete all of them.

What I am getting at is I've taken some/studied/experienced most of these subjects on my list (in some cases taken a higher level non-transferable course), that I am confident in my goal and really looking forward to tackling this challenge as I have no time to waste. If my progress motivates just one person to trek on, then this thread will have been successful.

Nyblizzard

Officially cleared for Orientation on July 15th. I really wish I could complete it beforehand!

bpenn

70 CU in one term? Go for it! I am starting the same path in September and should come in requiring about 48 CU. My goal is to knock that out in one term, also. I am taking ICND1 tomorrow and hope to advance to ICND2 by the end of July. It took me about a month and a half to prepare for ICND1 and I studied about 5 days a week, 2 hours a day. If you study more than that, I bet you can knock it out much quicker.

Nyblizzard

Awesome! I look forward to hearing about your progress

Nyblizzard

So it's the morning of the 15th and I have just completed Orientation and my first pre-assessment for C182 with a score of 63% (cut-off was 65%). I am confident that I can easily raise the score sometime later today after some sleep and reading.

bpenn

Getting there!

Just got my transcript evaluation back and I will be going in with 70 CUs. I will finished CCNA at the end of this month and should go in with 76. Pretty stoked!

ImThe0ne

Nyblizzard wrote: »

So it's the morning of the 15th and I have just completed Orientation and my first pre-assessment for C182 with a score of 63% (cut-off was 65%). I am confident that I can easily raise the score sometime later today after some sleep and reading.

Do you already have a mentor? I completed Orientation a little while ago and went ahead and did the pre-assessment for C182 but it said my Mentor would discuss my results, but I don't have a mentor yet. Am I missing something?

Nyblizzard

I received the same message but also haven't been assigned a mentor yet. My enrollment counselor told me today that whoever is assigned to me will be reaching out within the next two weeks.

ImThe0ne

Nyblizzard wrote: »

I received the same message but also haven't been assigned a mentor yet. My enrollment counselor told me today that whoever is assigned to me will be reaching out within the next two weeks.

Yep, I saw it pop up about 15 minutes later with my score. 61% on the preassessment, didn't expect as much programming and database questions. Going through the modules now!

We have similar goals and appears that while some of our classes differ, a lot are the same. If you want to buddy up sometime or bounce questions off each other let me know, it'd be cool to have someone that started the same time going through a lot of the same stuff together.

Nyblizzard

Definitely! Also I found out via reddit that we'd probably be matched with a mentor on Monday according to a mentor's reply on reddit

vmixer

Good luck! If you have some background in your classes it can totally be done. I started 6/1 and already have 25cu. Test tomorrow should make it 28 and Im shooting for a total of 42 this term.

I was on a steady paceof a class a week until I hit Algebra... :-/ I (unofficially)started that last week and if you haven't done math in 20 years (like me) it's a *****. Im guessing it will take me 6 weeks for algebra, if not Id be shooting for 60+ cu this term.

I only transferred in 3cu, so it been mostly GE classes. Eng comp 1/2, etc.

ImThe0ne

Nyblizzard wrote: »

Definitely! Also I found out via reddit that we'd probably be matched with a mentor on Monday according to a mentor's reply on reddit

Good to hear, hopefully that will happen!

Ajay_patil22

13 Days to go before I start my BS-IT. Currently I am going through the Orientation

. I was supposed to start on 1st July and was studying for A+ 801 and 802. July 1st did not work out and I opted for 1st August. Meanwhile, I booked my 801 and 802 exams for 07/08 and 07/15 and Passed both with a 736 and 789 respectively!!!.

I just turned in my A+ transcripts to WGU and waiting on getting those CUs transferred.

I enrolled with only 3 CUs. How many more CUs will A+ give me? 4 Right?

bpenn

Yeah, I am almost positive A+ gave me four credits in the transfer. Four for each exam, of course.

Nyblizzard

Congrats! A+ should definitely be worth 8 CU for passing both parts of the exam

Ajay_patil22

Thanks Bpenn / Nyblizzard. I was thinking I would get just 4 for both. 8 is great.