WGU Topic - Just started, my thoughts

mr.comfortably

Hello fellow IT Adventurists,

I just recently started at WGU so I can finish my BA. Quick intro to my background, I have 2 kids, loving wife, just got off a hip reconstruction and had to re-train from aircraft electronics in the airforce to IT. Currently I am working for a local government in a full Cisco environment doing networking (physical, to CLI, to Firewall, starting to mess with the aci ects.). I did a few semesters at a local university until everything went south for me with that hip problem (another long story, not going there), so I transferred those credits to WGU, about 44 I think.

I recently started at WGU, and I wanted to share my initial thoughts, as I am now 5 weeks in and have finished (4) whole classes
WGU is an entirely certification based curriculum, that focuses on self study and being "goal oriented". By that I mean, that they will schedule a weekly meeting with your counselor to contact you to see what your future goals are, what your plan is, what you want to do next, so in a sense they're always trying to stay involved to ensure you're involved with your studies as well. This approach is great for self-motivated individuals. I was a little confused when I first started, as with a traditional college you have physical people telling you where to go, what to do and where to sign. At WGU I found I needed to navigate around and explore the website to find all my resources efficiently, and really take it upon myself to succeed. This is not a bad thing by no means. Once I adjusted to the environment I started to thrive.
As a network analyst I'm constantly having to work late nights upgrading sites, or being on call, so a traditional college doesn't work for me. WGU allows me to study hard when I have the down time and the leniency when I cant.
The certification based approach allows for individuals who have masted and proved their knowledge with certifications to directly transfer over their certs to qualify for the class. This allowed me to clept about 30 credits. I plan to finish my BA by the end for 2019. So far. Things are looking positive. My only concern is about the accreditation and future acceptance.

Just my quick thoughts. Hope this helps future enrollees.
Best of luck.

boxerboy1168

getting ready to start my second year, currently studying the ICND2 material and WGU is the only thing that can work for me

mr.comfortably

My co-worker is taking his ICND2 next week. We have been hitting the flash cards and labs. I finished my ICND2 last year, and my advise would be lab till your fingers hurt. It concreted all the fundamentals for me, and the test will hit you with some labs. (I had a lot of routing, adjacency issue labs for w/e reason lol)

shochan

Yeah, I started to pursue WGU about a year or so ago, but it wasn't transferring like 27hrs and 3 of my certs, so I just decided to put it on hold...I plan on going back to re-evaluate in 2019 because I should have some more certs hopefully by the end of this year. I have 89 credit hours from my local college and AAS degree so I figured I was close to a Bachelor's degree but after they reviewed my transcript, I was really disappointed with the transfers, so I didn't pursue it.

yoba222

So are there actual lectures or videos or something? Or is it all self-study, maybe with a class forum with mandated participation? I've done in class and online at a few different schools, but curious about how the cert-centric online approach works.

TLeTourneau

mr.comfortably - what program are you in? WGU only offers BA degrees in the teachers college. Also, it is a bit disingenuous to claim that WGU is entirely certification based. Although you can and do attain industry certifications as part of the IT degree programs not all courses are tied to certifications, especially the general education courses in the undergraduate programs. It would be more accurate to say the school is competency based.

Why would you be concerned about the accreditation and acceptance? The school is accredited by the same regional accreditation body (Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities) that accredits Northwest University, Concordia University, Brigham Young University, and has been well accepted by a large cross section of the major players in the IT, education, and healthcare verticals.

yoba222 - WGU is a self-study school that offers learning resources and guidance when needed. There are no structured required classes although several instructors do schedule web meetings to discuss course specifics and go over materials and common questions. The training materials depend on the course and may contain videos, textbooks and other resources.

mr.comfortably

Hey TLeTourneau,

I dont need to quote you, people can scroll up .
Sorry I havn't been able to respond recently, I've been studying of course!!
Hindsight, it is probably not accurate to call it certification based, but... for the most part the foundation of the degree is based on the curriculum governed by industry manufacturers....who issue certification for your knowledge SO...thats where I get my generalization.
The general courses are rather basic; college Alg, English, bio, soc, lab, ect. Nothing out of the ordinary for your first 2 years at a traditional college.
Its their specifics that are cert based (For the IT Network Security BA specifically)
Its a large focus on being in the "technician" role w/e that focus is in your job title (Network Analyst, Systems Engineer, Program Specialist) Its all the same. They teach you tools to facilitate your job. You will not learn the criteria of degrees such as computer science. Its completely foundational, and geared to put you in a job, nothing more.
Of course this is just my perspective from my degree choice, so its all relative too -Take it with a grain of alt <----I think thats the saying :P

Basic85

Congrats! I've been thinking about attending WGU after I'm done at my Junior College! Is an AA degree required to attend WGU? or is it best to get an AA degree? I've heard you can transfer your credits over from the junior college even if you don't have an AA.