PJ's WGU Progress Thread - MSCSIA (start date August 2016)

PJ_Sneakers

Yep, I basically write my paper, and then when I'm done I revisit the rubric and check off each section as if I were the one grading the paper.

I restate some of the verbiage from the rubric when I'm writing my concluding paragraphs to make it easy for the graders to understand where I am trying to meet the requirements of the assignment.

PJ_Sneakers

TFT2 Cyberlaw, Regulations, and Compliance is done. It was not easy but it was not too hard either. I've done a decent amount of work with contracts, laws, and compliance, which I think helped me out.

I think the next class I'll do is Secure Software Design and if I have time left in my term probably Secure Network Design.

Pending:
Security Policies and Standards—Best Practices
Secure Network Design
Secure Software Design
Disaster Recovery Planning, Prevention, and Response
Capstone

Complete:
Cyberlaw, Regulations, and Compliance
Risk Management
Cyberwarfare
Ethical Hacking
Forensics and Network Intrusion

veronica321

Awesome. Great Going !!. In 5 months you are already done with 5 Modules.

tmurphy3100

Great progress PJ! I am on my 9th month doing the same program. Moving a little slow...

Completed: Risk Management, Cyberlaw, Cyber-warfare, Secure Network Design, Secure Software Design.

Working on: Security Policies and Hell (on Task 3)

Left: CEH, CHFI, Disaster Recovery, and Capstone.

Good luck to us both!

PJ_Sneakers

Thanks everyone!

I am studying for Secure Software Design right now, I think I'll be able to take that assessment later this week. I just have to brush up on the dev lifecycle stuff and the other framework-type stuff.

After that will be Secure Network Design which should be easy enough. I have 6 more weeks left in my term so I should have plenty of time for both of those.

I should be going into my second term with only Disaster Recovery, Security Policies, and the capstone to complete.

Murphy, how bad is VLT2? I've read horror stories about it, but I also read that TFT2 was a rough class and it was not.

tmurphy3100

VLT2 is not too hard, just boring tasks. I find myself over thinking simple tasks, but if you just sit down and knock them out, it should be no problem.

PJ_Sneakers

tmurphy3100 wrote: »

VLT2 is not too hard, just boring tasks. I find myself over thinking simple tasks, but if you just sit down and knock them out, it should be no problem.

Thanks! Hopefully I will be able to stick to the rubric like the other classes and just knock out the requirements.

plopbangcrash

It looks like I will complete my goal of finishing the MS:CIA by New Years: I have passed the Prospectus and Capstone and I have scheduled the oral defense for Friday, this will complete my time at WGU. I took several breaks during my degrees ( most of January fighting with WGU curriculum changes when they switched from Windows 7 to Windows 8 to Linux and then back to Windows 7 before planning to move to Windows 10 before getting tired of it and switching for a BS: IT-Network Administration to BS:IT , 6 months or so before signing up for MS:CIA after getting tuition reimbursement approved by my employer and then most of October during the MS:CIA due to burn out). Overall I enjoyed my time at WGU and would recommend it for those who want to attain certifications and degrees side by side without going deep into debt. I am married , no kids, I have been in IT for roughly ten years and work roughly 40-50 hours a week as a systems administrator and very rarely dedicated weekend hours to study. I would say on average I dedicated 10-15 hours or so a week towards the coursework. I have included my Degree Plan/ Progress below in case anyone is curious or wants to get a feel for course completion/study time/experience ratios, YMMV.

WGU BS-IT

---

Term 1 | 5/01/15 - 10/31/15
IT Foundations | C393 | 05/23/15
IT Applications | C394 | 05/23/15
Scripting and Programming-Foundations | C175 | 06/23/15
Scripting and Programming-Applications | C169 | 08/18/15
Data Management-Foundations | C175 | 09/02/15
Business of IT-Applications | C179 | 09/21/15
Data Management-Applications | C170 | 09/25/15
Business of IT-Project Management | C176 | 10/24/15

Term 2 | 11/01/15 - 01/30/2016
Technical Writing | C435 | 11/09/15
IT Capstone Written Project | C436 11/24/15
Operating Systems I | C697 | 12/19/15
Operating Systems II | C698 | 12/19/15
Organizational Behavior and Leadership | C484 | 01/25/16
Principles of Management | C483 | 01/25/16
Web Programming | C298 | 01/30/16
Web Technologies | C479 | 01/30/16

WGU MS:CIA

---

Term 1 | 09/01/16 - 12/30/16
Cyberlaw,Regulations, and Compliance | TFT2 | 09/05/16
Risk Management | JIT2 | 09/06/16
Cyberwarfare | C688 | 09/07/16
Secure Network Design | C700 | 09/13/16
Security Policies and Standards-Best Practices | VLT2 | 09/24/16
Secure Software Design | C706 | 10/24/16
Disaster Recovery Planning, Prevention and Response | FXT2 | 11/03/16
Ethical Hacking | C701 | 11/15/16
Forensics and Network Intrusion | C702 | 11/22/16
Information Security and Assurance Capstone Project | LQT2 | 12/30/16



As for the immediate future, I will most likely go for the CISSP and/or OSCP, depending on whether my employer will reimburse for the coursework/environment access/ certification. For the long term, I will most likely pursue a D.Sc in Cyber Security or Information Systems with a concentration in Information assurance and computer security if I can get an employer to foot the bill and get through admissions.

PJ_Sneakers

Congratulations! I'll be done with my BS and MS in three terms too, but mine is opposite: one term for the BS and two for the MS.

Please post your experience with the capstone and oral defense if you have time! I'm curious as to what I should expect.

amcnow

Wow! That is quite the aggressive timeline, particularly for the MSCIA. I can only hope to be half that fast.

Kudos!

p@r0tuXus

plopbangcrash wrote: »

It looks like I will complete my goal of finishing the MS:CIA by New Years...

Wow! That's quite an accomplishment. Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration! It might be criminal to ask you, since you put so much obvious effort in your post, but I noticed it didn't look like you listed every course associated with the degree. Can you tell me, did you have credits/certs that qualified for credits that transferred/were accepted? Also, noting the time of completion on your courses, it looks like you burned through a lot of it based on your experience, since you said you didn't study on weekends. Did you all ready have a lot of experience in all of these subjects or are you just a dedicated quick-study person? Thanks and congrats again!

plopbangcrash

p@r0tuXus wrote: »

Wow! That's quite an accomplishment. Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration! It might be criminal to ask you, since you put so much obvious effort in your post, but I noticed it didn't look like you listed every course associated with the degree. Can you tell me, did you have credits/certs that qualified for credits that transferred/were accepted? Also, noting the time of completion on your courses, it looks like you burned through a lot of it based on your experience, since you said you didn't study on weekends. Did you all ready have a lot of experience in all of these subjects or are you just a dedicated quick-study person? Thanks and congrats again!

In regards to the BS:IT, I transferred in an A.A.S in Networking and an A.A.S. in Web Development which covered my general education courses, I had course work that transferred in additional credit for Introduction to IT | C182 , Web Development Fundamentals | C376, Networks | C480 and transferred in Net+ which covered Network and Security-Foundations | C172 , Network and Security-Applications
| C178. I have a decent amount of experience, but, I would say that the majority of it is being a relatively quick learner and focusing on concepts as opposed to memorizing minutiae in the coursework helps to speed up the process.


Things that I did that could help speed up the process:
1. Search through the forum for threads such as Ratbuddy's MS:ISA thread to get a feel for what the graders are looking for in taskstream as the course work is vague.
2. When writing papers pull down a copy of the course guide and the rubric. Use the tasks in the rubric as Heading 1 and sub tasks as Heading 2. Using the course guide to develop the content of the paper but use the terminology used in the rubric. (i.e. if the rubric states " adequately defines the critical path of the project" then you would start the paragraph with something similar to " The critical path of the project is defined by...." and then hit the guidelines given in the course guide. If you nerf the course for the graders they are less likely to hammer you on content.
3. Use the course guides to determine the common length for the papers, no need to overwrite.
4. Read the assignments prior to starting the course and write the assignment as you touch the materials. Typically the course guides will tell you what materials contain the information needed to complete the assignments.
5. Take a pre-assessment early to see where you stand at the start of the class. Read any sections you were less than 10% over the cut score on and take all chapter quizzes and assessments. If you get a +10% margin on your pre-assessment, schedule the test as soon as possible, do a last minute cram and take the test.
6.For certification courses, ignore the coursework material for the most part, look to the sub-forums here for the particular certification and determine what the current consensus is for the best materials. Use those materials and take the tests, pre-assessment, quizzes etc. until you can unlock the voucher.

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

Congratulations! I'll be done with my BS and MS in three terms too, but mine is opposite: one term for the BS and two for the MS.


Please post your experience with the capstone and oral defense if you have time! I'm curious as to what I should expect.

Don't sweat the Capstone, it isn't that bad. I broke mine into each major section (Introduction, Systems and Process Audit, Detailed and Functional Requirements, Project Design,Methodology, Project Development, Quality Assurance,Implementation Plan, Risk Assessment, Post Implementation Support and Issues, and Conclusions,Outcomes and Reflection),pulled a few Capstones down from the archive to reference so that I knew what taskstream/WGU were looking for when refering to some of the broader concepts (such as how deep into the "tech stack" do they want you to go) and worked through each section. I did mine in the evening over a week or so and passed it first time through without revisions.


In the BS, a conversion guide is given for translating your tech writing to capstone. There is currently no guide converting the Prospectus to the Capstone for the MS. I reviewed pretty much all of the MS:ISA Capstones in the archive and the average length ranged from 36-100 pages. My Prospectus was 22 pages and my Capstone was 42 pages.The main thing to remember is that the Prospectus was the pitch for the project, basically, and that the Capstone is after it is completed so anything adapted should reflect past tense with the exception of things like purpose and goals which would still make sense to be present tense.


In regards to conversion from the Prospectus to the Capstone:
* the Abstract from my Prospectus was used directly for the Abstract of the Capstone
* the Introduction>Project Scope from the Prospectus was converted to the Introduction>Project Scope and Project Design>Scope of the Capstone
* the Problem Statement>Causes from the Prospectus can be converted to the Systems and Process Audit>Problem Causes of the Capstone.
* the Problem Statement>Business Impacts from the Prospectus can be converted to the Systems and Process Audit>Business Impacts of the Capstone.
* the Problem Statement>Cost Analysis from the Prospectus can be converted to the Systems and Process Audit>Cost Analysis of the Capstone.
* the Problem Statement>Risk Analysis from the Prospectus can be converted to the Systems and Process Audit>Risk Analysis of the Capstone.
* the Problem Statement>Risk Analysis from the Prospectus can be used to help develop the Risk assessment portion of the Capstone depending on how deep you developed it.




As for the oral defense, I will let you know how it goes. I watched the only one in the archives and it didn't seem too bad. Basically, you do a 10-15 page presentation where you introduce yourself, give an overview of your project, go over how each of the primary courses of the degree assisted in the project and then how you will apply the knowledge earned in the degree in your profession.The person who reviewed your Capstone will ask you a few questions about the project (I believe this is primarily to verify that you actually know your project and didn't use a service to write it for you) and then I believe they verify whether you have successfully defended your Capstone.After that you follow up with your student mentor to complete the graduation process and crack a few beers or whatever your preferred method of celebration is.

jamesleecoleman

What method are you using to study for the Secure Software Design? I'm doing my best to read through it and it's so boring to me.
I'm still working on Secure Policies and Standards and I need to hurry and get it done by the middle of Jan so I can put on Disaster Recovery instead of Secure Software Design. It would be nice to be able to knock both out in this semester as well.

PJ_Sneakers

plopbangcrash: Thank you! That was extremely helpful. I will only have Security Policies and Disaster Recovery to finish before my capstone next term. I'm hoping to be done by April.

jamesleecoleman: I'm going over the study guide and just hitting the sections I am less familiar with, like the framework stuff. A lot of it I'm already familiar with. The holidays set me back, but I hope to take the assessment soon.

PJ_Sneakers

C706 Secure Software Design is knocked out. Moving on to C700 Secure Network Design! This one shouldn't take me too long, but since I only have 3 weeks left in the term I am going to make sure I'm good on the preassessment now, and then pass the PA & OA during the first week of my second term.

Pending:
Security Policies and Standards—Best Practices
Secure Network Design
Disaster Recovery Planning, Prevention, and Response
Capstone

Complete:
Secure Software Design
Cyberlaw, Regulations, and Compliance
Risk Management
Cyberwarfare
Ethical Hacking
Forensics and Network Intrusion

jamesleecoleman

PJ_Sneakers....

I've been set back too. I gotta finish this policy class, then I'll add on Risk Management. I figure it'll give me time to study for the CEH/CHFI and Secure Software Design. I might take the Software Design last. I just wanna make sure I know the info before I knock it out.

I'm glad that you're doing very well with your progress

PJ_Sneakers

Thanks! You will be ok on C706 after CEH. It'll be familiar to you with your Sec+ and CEH knowledge plus software lifecycle stuff added.

PJ_Sneakers

C700 Secure Network Design is done. I had hoped to get it out of the way earlier this week, but I had a few things come up. I took the pre-assessment right off. I brushed up on firewalls and VPN's and then took the exam. I have two weeks left in my term, so I am going to work on the Disaster Recovery assignments until the next term starts, and hopefully I'll have at least one of the tasks already ready to pop into Taskstream as soon as it's added to my degree plan.

Two more classes and the capstone left!

Pending:
Security Policies and Standards—Best Practices
Disaster Recovery Planning, Prevention, and Response
Capstone

Complete:
Secure Network Design
Secure Software Design
Cyberlaw, Regulations, and Compliance
Risk Management
Cyberwarfare
Ethical Hacking
Forensics and Network Intrusion

albinorhino187

I've enjoyed reading this thread and hearing about everyone's journey to their masters. I have five classes left to complete my BS: IT Sec, and my 2nd term starts on 3/1.

I'm debating whether I want to call it after that or jump right into MSCSIA. I don't have an INFOSEC background, but I've worked as an IT Specialist/generalist/jack of all trades for the last 5 years.

How much of an impact has your previous experience had on your ability to move so quickly?

LaSeeno

How do the CEH and CHFI classes work? I can pass both of these on my own. But do I spend the $650 and $500 just so they are credited to WGU?

albinorhino187

you should wait and let the school pay for it. You might add a little time to your program, but you can prep for them now and ask that they be the first classes you complete so the info stays fresh. The cost of the test is included in your tuition, so you might as well save your money. For all of the certification classes i've taken with WGU, they provide various types of study material, you verify you're ready by passing one of their practice tests, and then they give you a voucher code to schedule your exam. It doesn't matter if you've prepared with your own materials as long as you can pass their practice test to show you're ready.

PJ_Sneakers

albinorhino187 wrote: »

I've enjoyed reading this thread and hearing about everyone's journey to their masters. I have five classes left to complete my BS: IT Sec, and my 2nd term starts on 3/1.

I'm debating whether I want to call it after that or jump right into MSCSIA. I don't have an INFOSEC background, but I've worked as an IT Specialist/generalist/jack of all trades for the last 5 years.

How much of an impact has your previous experience had on your ability to move so quickly?

Honestly, if your focus is not in security I would not necessarily pursue the cybersec degree. My interests lie in security of all kinds, but I am almost thinking that I should have done the IT Management or MBA instead of the MSCSIA because those degrees can be more broadly applied. There are more certs that can hone your focus towards infosec than there are certs that can hone your focus in broader aspects such as management.

My previous experience is in public safety, digital forensics, networking, system administration, and web development. I do think that the experience helped me in many ways during both the BSIT and the MSCSIA at WGU.

PJ_Sneakers

LaSeeno wrote: »

How do the CEH and CHFI classes work? I can pass both of these on my own. But do I spend the $650 and $500 just so they are credited to WGU?

I agree with albinorhino. Your CCNA:Sec and CISSP already qualify your for the program.

The main reason I did the CEH and CHFI prior to enrolling for the MSCSIA was because WGU would not accept me into the MSCSIA program with their BSIT in Network Administration as a prerequisite (even though a degree in networking supposedly qualifies per their website). They said I had to at least have a CCNA to qualify, but could also get a CISSP, CISM, CEH, or CHFI.

So I did both the CEH and CHFI to get my foot in the door and also to knock out those classes prior to enrollment.

albinorhino187

Thank you for the advice. I haven't had much applicable security experience, at least not compared to what a true infosec analyst might be doing day to day. Mostly I'm just looking to specialize. I'm trying to make the transition into network engineering or security.

PJ_Sneakers

I have given this a lot of thought, to the point that I may pursue the MSITM later this year. After the MSCSIA, it is only like an additional 6 classes plus the MSITM capstone.

LaSeeno

albinorhino187 wrote: »

you should wait and let the school pay for it. You might add a little time to your program, but you can prep for them now and ask that they be the first classes you complete so the info stays fresh. The cost of the test is included in your tuition, so you might as well save your money. For all of the certification classes i've taken with WGU, they provide various types of study material, you verify you're ready by passing one of their practice tests, and then they give you a voucher code to schedule your exam. It doesn't matter if you've prepared with your own materials as long as you can pass their practice test to show you're ready.

What happens if you pass the WGU practice and fail the CEH? Obviously I don't plan on it but I like to be informed. Also, do the CEH and CHFI classes require lengthy papers or is it simply a test prep course?

PJ_Sneakers

You take the exam again. Third tries on exams incur an extra fee. If you pass the cert exam, you pass the course.

I believe you get a maximum of four exam attempts (for any class) before you are dropped from the program.

LaSeeno

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

You take the exam again. Third tries on exams incur an extra fee. If you pass the cert exam, you pass the course.

I believe you get a maximum of four exam attempts (for any class) before you are dropped from the program.

Thank you sir. And thank you for saving me $1,150.

PJ_Sneakers

LaSeeno wrote: »

Thank you sir. And thank you for saving me $1,150.

It's a much better value rolling it into your tuition, especially with WGU's "all-you-can-eat" model.

mzx380

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

I have given this a lot of thought, to the point that I may pursue the MSITM later this year. After the MSCSIA, it is only like an additional 6 classes plus the MSITM capstone.

Are you saying there is an overlap in the two curriculums? I am currently in the MBA program and am thinking about the MSCISA afterward. Let me know if you have done any research on this PJ_Sneakers