Western Governors University Questions and Answers / Threads related to WGU

Slithy

This thread is a bit daunting in size - though I will work through it to try to learn what i can.

To actually ask a question: Are there any WGU Grads here that are not industry vets? I would be particularly interested in the experiences of those that did the IT bachelors with a security emphasis.

sanrus

Hi, does anybody know the difference in WGU in house exam and Microsoft exam in terms of difficulty? Lets say lets say EYC1 will it be the same as microsoft exam 70-640? In other words will preparation will take longer for microsoft exam or will it be the same?

thanks.

jober

Long time since I have posted but have a question for you all out there. This may seem like a dumb question but it really has me anxious. When accepting award package for financial aid at WGU, I accidently clicked on a wrong answer. Below is the question.



Do you want to be awarded federal student loans?
Accept recommended loans



I wanted to accept a little more than what my total tuition was for upcoming educational expenses(time to upgrade laptop, additional study resources, etc...). My financial aid award letter arrived today with just enough to cover tuition. Is this something that the fin aid office can reverse? I cant believe that I was so careless in my actions in clicking the wrong item.

I appreciate your answers in advance. Thank you. This is such a great forum.

Slithy

Finished my Readiness Exam just now.

Should i expect to get results back on it or just that my enrollment counselor will have access to them?

If the results are returned, what is the grading delay?

jober

Unless something has changed - I did not have access to readiness exam scores. It was you were in if you passed and not in if you didnt.

NicWhite

For those who took a lot of the general classes, like english, math, geography, biology, did you find those to be difficult or do they go pretty quickly?

Shinjin

jober wrote: »

Long time since I have posted but have a question for you all out there. This may seem like a dumb question but it really has me anxious. When accepting award package for financial aid at WGU, I accidently clicked on a wrong answer. Below is the question.



Do you want to be awarded federal student loans?
Accept recommended loans




I wanted to accept a little more than what my total tuition was for upcoming educational expenses(time to upgrade laptop, additional study resources, etc...). My financial aid award letter arrived today with just enough to cover tuition. Is this something that the fin aid office can reverse? I cant believe that I was so careless in my actions in clicking the wrong item.

I appreciate your answers in advance. Thank you. This is such a great forum.

I was pretty much in the same spot as you except it was the reverse. I accepted the recommended loans (made too much to qualify for any grants) and actually only wanted half of the loans that were offered (subsidized only), because as some of you may or may not know the student interest rate was recently doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% July 1st, 2013. It isn't set in stone though because I think congress is trying to work something out.

At any rate, I just emailed the Bursar/Fin Aid office and had it corrected before the start of my first term with no problems.

Bundiman

Slithy wrote: »

Finished my Readiness Exam just now.

Should i expect to get results back on it or just that my enrollment counselor will have access to them?

If the results are returned, what is the grading delay?

If I recall correctly if you had a green check on the icon for the exam it meant that you passed it.

Bundiman

NicWhite wrote: »

For those who took a lot of the general classes, like english, math, geography, biology, did you find those to be difficult or do they go pretty quickly?

I have taken the old science and most of the Math and English general ed classes at least in the BS:IT Security track. I would say they are easy enough to get through but it all depends on you. How badly do you want to get through it. I just replaced playing video games with WGU classes. Each class completed means another level gained. Some levels are a grind which takes weeks and others are feel a simple as take this message to the guy standing next to me. I want to reach max level as fast as possible and move onto the next game MS:ISA.

NicWhite

Bundiman wrote: »

I have taken the old science and most of the Math and English general ed classes. I would say they are easy enough to get through but it all depends on you. How badly do you want to get through it. I just replaced playing video games with WGU classes. Each class completed means another level gained. Some levels are a grind which takes weeks and others are feel a simple as take this message to the guy standing next to me. I want to reach max level as fast as possible and move onto the next game MS:ISA.

Thanks. The hope is to blast right through them.

sleepingturtle

Just wanted to get some input. Does choosing a specialty on the degree actually help in the job market? I am thinking of going into security.

DoubleNNs

The specialties help because you'll be earning different certifications. They'll help in the job market that way

CoolMike

Bundiman wrote: »

I have taken the old science and most of the Math and English general ed classes at least in the BS:IT Security track. I would say they are easy enough to get through but it all depends on you. How badly do you want to get through it. I just replaced playing video games with WGU classes. Each class completed means another level gained. Some levels are a grind which takes weeks and others are feel a simple as take this message to the guy standing next to me. I want to reach max level as fast as possible and move onto the next game MS:ISA.

This entire paragraph made me smile lol. Coming from gaming every night and morning and whatever downtime I have, this kinda puts things in better perspective.

vinnypolston

Going to be going to WGU soon for my B.S. in Information Technology. I have 8 years ( more or less a help desk analyst II ) experience. I got my A+ certification in 2008. I do great at with self-studying. My goal is to graduate as quickly as possible. My question is in regards to the certifications that can transfer.. Theoretically, if I were to study and get all of the certs listed on the IT degree page done.. How many credit hours would I need to attain my Bachelors?

Mystic2

I am very interested in going to WGU although at this time with my personal life being crazy with the loss of my parents, I know that I wouldn't be able to start until next year, but my question is I have my A+ and Net+ which don't expire since I took them back in '02, how do they handle that info, do I just get a testout because they don't count those certifications because I took that test over 10 years ago, and it was actually an adaptive test rather than the one they have now. I also am still up in the air about what track I would like to be in, but I guess with the time I have I should be able to figure that out.

Bundiman

You have to have earned the exam in the last 5 years. I think even renewing it counts as well.

Mystic2

The problem being is that I don't want to renew, it makes no sense for me to have a cert that never expires, at least financially and even time wise to some point to have to renew it every three years, I see at least the validity in CCNA and others, but for those ones, not so much. But it seemst that I will just have an assessment, and I guess I can just power through those courses, and I guess I'll learn something, since I know I dont know everything.

DeezyFF

Can anyone give me any insight on what kind of theme used for IWT1* Humanities Task 2? I'm stuck I can't think of a theme to go with any of the books that goes along with IT. Here is the list.

NOVELS:The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850
The Call of the Wild by Jack London, 1903

NOVELLAS:
Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, 1886
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, 1897

SHORT STORIES:
“The Package” by Kurt Vonnegut, 1952
“Johnny Mnemonic” by William Gibson, 1981
“The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, 1948
“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver, 1983
“Silver Water” by Amy Bloom, 1993
“The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999
“The Lost ‘Beautifulness’” by Anzia Yezierska, 1920
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, 1950
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel García Márquez, 1968

POEMS:
“That the Science of Cartography is Limited” by Eavan Boland, 1994
“A Brave and Startling Truth” by Maya Angelou, 1995
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, 1888
“If” by Rudyard Kipling, 1895
“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander, 2009
“Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes, 1935

ESSAY:
“A Talk to Teachers” by James Baldwin, 1963*

Any help would grately be appreciated.

Params7

For working professionals who are pursuing a BS degree from WGU - how much time do you spend after work on studying - and what is the average timespan for working individuals to complete a degree?

DeezyFF

I usually dedicate an hour or so to work on performance assessments like writing a paper or somthing a night. If its a certification I usually study pretty hard on the weekdays probably 2 to 3 hours a night. I also have been in school for only 10 months and have almost 50 credit hours. So it can be done pretty quickly. I hope to be done by October 1st 2014.

Slithy

Deezy FF wrote: »

Can anyone give me any insight on what kind of theme used for IWT1* Humanities Task 2? I'm stuck I can't think of a theme to go with any of the books that goes along with IT. Here is the list.

NOVELS:The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850
The Call of the Wild by Jack London, 1903

NOVELLAS:
Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, 1886
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, 1897

SHORT STORIES:
“The Package” by Kurt Vonnegut, 1952
“Johnny Mnemonic” by William Gibson, 1981
“The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, 1948
“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver, 1983
“Silver Water” by Amy Bloom, 1993
“The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999
“The Lost ‘Beautifulness’” by Anzia Yezierska, 1920
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, 1950
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel García Márquez, 1968

POEMS:
“That the Science of Cartography is Limited” by Eavan Boland, 1994
“A Brave and Startling Truth” by Maya Angelou, 1995
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, 1888
“If” by Rudyard Kipling, 1895
“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander, 2009
“Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes, 1935

ESSAY:
“A Talk to Teachers” by James Baldwin, 1963*

Any help would grately be appreciated.

I can't say i have read the entire list but i can give a little insight on connections with a few titles.

"Great Gatsby" is essentially about the self destructive nature of people.(help desk?)

"Call of the wild" is jack london so expect survival/loyalty themes (job market? security industry?)

I actually got a little excited misreading that the book was "One day in the life of ivan denisovich" - I honestly didn't care for "death of ivan Ilyich" as much. Anyway, that is a Tolstoy largely about existential doubt(before death) with a dab of human cruelty(Russian author of course). You could maybe stretch the existential towards AI.


Gibson is a very notable cyberpunk author - while i haven't read that short it wouldn't be too hard to connect his writing to IT.

"The Veldt" relates to the dangers of relying too much on technology - easy to connect to IT(also pretty much the reason the IT job market continues to exist)

"If" Is kind of setting an ideal goal for self-betterment - probably an easy connection to the whole "continuing education" side of being employed in the technology industry.

Roflawful

Ty Slith. Very helpful

DeezyFF

Slith I give u upvotes x infinity

Thanks I went with The Great Gatsby.

Slithy

You're welcome - literature is one of my hobbies.

jswine

Does anybody know if military tuition assistance covers all of the tuition for one six month term since it is below 4500$? Getting this answer from wgu seems near impossible as the enrollment counselor has been clueless. I don't have it in the budget to pay out of pocket so this is a big factor.

DeezyFF

yea the military TA gave me the run around also. I started school the month after I ETSed from the military. I used the GI BILL it pays for everything and I get around $475 a month for BAH. It also only takes the % of time you are enrolled from your GI BILL. For an example i was enrolled in 4 classes that added up to 8 credit hours and they are only charging my GI BILL 3 months of the 36 months I am available. There is also a way where at the end of my term i can request they charge me the full 6 months from my GI BILL and give me all of the extra BAH in one lump sum.

Hau5Mau5

Hi! I'm new to forums though I've been lurking for a while.Is there any way that I can get my Enrollment Counselor to understand that contacting me via phone is not convenient for me? I'm in the Navy, stationed in Japan, working as an IT. When I'm on shore, I do have a cell but to use that internationally would rack up a lot of charges. I also don't always have a cell signal and have to walk out of my barracks to make a call. To call overseas, I need to either schedule a Skype call or hope 1 of 3 payphones at the recreation building is available. WGU _can not initiate a call with me_.However, I am able to check my email several times per day when I'm on shore and about once a day while at sea. However, my Counselor is insisting that he be able to call me, and that my mentor be able to call me later on. Even after I explained that I am currently at sea, he sent me an email complaining that he couldn't reach me via phone and that he'd tried a few times. He's insisting that he needs to talk to me on the phone to tell me about WGU, the program I'm interested in, etc.I'm getting frustrated because I don't need the spiel. I've looked at the website extensively (guided by these forums) and I don't need him to tell me that it's a great opportunity. I am quite aware. I just want more information on my chosen program right now.Can anyone help me out?

milieu

The ECs tend to be the worst part of the experience. Mine was impossible to reach by email, and would not respond to anything I emailed, and insisted we had to call. Like you, I pretty much had read everything on the WGU pages, and knew what I wanted.

Can you schedule a call with him at a specific time, and then call using Skype?

Bear in mind that you will have to be called weekly by your mentor, so you'll have to come up with some way to deal with this if you do go with WGU.

wdwiz4

I've tired to email my EC but he still has yet to respond. I did call to follow up on my FAFSA to see if they got it but they informed me that I have to have the application in before they could assist me. I found that a bit weird since I work in the Financial aid department but I understand its just the way they operate.

SteveLord

To people who transferred in little to nothing.

How are the general education classes from WGU in terms of difficulty? Do you think it is better to take those at a community college and transfer in? I have been out of the math, science and writing game for a decade now. Although I did pass their assessment without too much of a problem.