Student Experiences at Western Governors University (WGU)

petedude

jmasterj206 wrote:

I must say that I have been pretty disappointed with WGU lately. My mentor, who was great, left and took another position in the school and now I have a new mentor. I haven't heard a word from him yet in 3 weeks. I'm trying to change my emphasis since I can't seem to pass AIV1.

Sounds like you need to call Student Services.

I was supposed to be working with the course mentor for that class and I got "forgot" about 3 different times. I talked to his boss and he basically told me that it should be my responsibility to track him down.

That's something else that should go to Student Services, IMHO

Not that I still wouldn't recommend WGU it just seems that they have gotten so big that they don't have the staff to keep up.

They have grown quite a bit lately, haven't they? But then, I think they've been trying a little too hard to run lean for a little too long. Looks like it's time to open up the wallet and bring on some more staff.

erpadmin

petedude wrote: »

Sounds like you need to call Student Services.

Calling Student Services to complain got me two free WGU hoodies! Ahhh yeah....(it was supposed to be one..., but they messed up by making me wait another month...they sent another one, then the original hoodie finally made it's way back.... )


So I got two.

jcole4lsu

Why in His good name would you go with the Network Design and Management emphasis when you have no prior experience in IT?

What degree plan would you suggest for someone with no real IT experience?
Standard BS in IT?
BS in IT:Network Admin?
BS in IT:Security?

I would be transferring in with an AAS in Networking but with no real work experience other than on campus.

erpadmin

jcole4lsu wrote: »

What degree plan would you suggest for someone with no real IT experience?
Standard BS in IT?
BS in IT:Network Admin?
BS in IT:Security?

I would be transferring in with an AAS in Networking but with no real work experience other than on campus.

To be honest, if you have no experience in IT other than what you have in school, from what I have seen from my fellow WGUers in this thread, the regular IT degree might not be such a bad idea.

In fact, in your case, an BS in IT might not be such a bad idea anyhow. You can get a programming class under your belt and you might get to parlay that into administrating SQL. A lot of homegrown apps use Java as a front end and SQL as a backend. You may find that it's SQL you might want to deal with instead of routers and switches.

When I first started in WGU, I saw the appeal in studying for my MCITP:EA and getting a degree (kill two birds with one stone.) However, I didn't anticpate that I'd be that much under the gun. MS exams are tricky, even for folks who have been dealing with MS Servers since NT 4.0 (actually...I've dealt with NT 3.5 for a minute....but not long.) In the interest of time, I probably would have been better off just getting the regular degree. The amount of studying I had to cram in for the MS exams has made me somewhat irritable to my loved ones. So I can only imagine how other folks are going through it. My only take away from going for the MCITP:EA is that I can (at my own pace) go for the SQL Server 2008 certification. I have to see how much time I'll have for that. But that would be the first cert I go for since A+/Network+. (and I only went for those because I thought I'd be an MCSA...)

Too many of my WGU brethren had switched emphasis because of the MS exams. I can finally understand why now, but since I'm 4 fifths done with an MCITP:EA, I have no choice but to stay the course. As an experienced IT pro and hopefully a WGU graduate soon enough, all I can tell you is do not take the MS exams lightly. It's work...a lot of work.

Don't misunderstand me....it is not impossible for someone with no experience to obtain and NDM degree....I just can't recommend it under that circumstance.

jmasterj206

+1 on what erpadmin said on the MS exams. I have been working on the 70-642 exam and can't pass it and I have setup and been running a Server 2008 R2 environment for almost 3 years.

Also, I have been told that you shouldn't take server exams late in their life cycle since MS has had plenty of time to dial in their questions and since it has been out for awhile they expect you to have an even deeper knowledge of the material. I'm not saying that is true or not just what I have been told.

petedude

erpadmin wrote: »

To be honest, if you have no experience in IT other than what you have in school, from what I have seen from my fellow WGUers in this thread, the regular IT degree might not be such a bad idea.

Reach for your airsickness bag if you've heard me say this already. . .

The "generic", "regular" or "standard" IT degree is a VERY good overview of IT. The only thing you miss is an in-depth understanding of networking, but if you're after that you should be in another one of the programs anyway. I feel the "regular" IT program builds a well-rounded professional understanding of IT, because it covers databases, networks, programming, workstation OSes and project management. I don't think you could ask to cover much more, and it opens students eyes to a wide spectrum of what IT actually does as a whole (not to mention the interdependent parts!).

swild

So, no more IT Fundamentals 1 as of 2/1/12. at least for the Security emphasis.

I wonder if I could skip it and then sign up for the new course outline. I would really like to have that out of the way.

erpadmin

swild wrote: »

So, no more IT Fundamentals 1 as of 2/1/12. at least for the Security emphasis.

I wonder if I could skip it and then sign up for the new course outline. I would really like to have that out of the way.

Usually, when they do a change like that, it's typically for new students. Old students can either stay with the current program, OR change to the new one. If you switch to the new one, you have to wait until your term is done.

tc613

I just want to say thanks to everyone here. I don't post much because of intense work and study. But its paid off! I am not in IT at the moment just have had experience being an entrepreneur and having to do a lot of stuff for myself over the past 13 years. I decided to pursue a IT degree from WGU with no previous college or secular experience working in IT. I started from scratch!!

You guys here with your posts have allowed me the motivation to go forward and almost finish my degree in programming in less than 18 months. In the next 2 months I hope to be finished with my undergraduate degree. Also I will soon be hitting the job market.

Best regards

hiddenknight821

tc613 wrote: »

I decided to pursue a IT degree from WGU with no previous college or secular experience working in IT. I started from scratch!!

You guys here with your posts have allowed me the motivation to go forward and almost finish my degree in programming in less than 18 months. In the next 2 months I hope to be finished with my undergraduate degree.

Damn! You're a hardcore. Not many would want to dare to try WGU from scratch. I know I wouldn't. We know self-learning and self-motivation aren't easy. I needed my campus and classroom experience first. Congrats on graduating very soon!

phaneuf1

I've passed EWB, and I'm all set to start my degree January 2nd.

tc613

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Damn! You're a hardcore. Not many would want to dare to try WGU from scratch. I know I wouldn't. We know self-learning and self-motivation aren't easy. I needed my campus and classroom experience first. Congrats on graduating very soon!

Thanks hiddenknight for the kind words but it all boils down to how bad you want something and getting my degree was the top priority!!

Hypntick

Already posted this in the MCITP section but....

70-640 Passed!
Well, that was rough. Lot of DNS I noticed, a lot more than I thought there would be. Amusingly enough CS was my lowest area, even though in my practice tests that was my strong point. Used the MS press book, Labsim, Technet, and my home lab. In addition I do tend to do this kind of stuff on a day to day basis, most of it anyways. Taking the evening off and as i'm off work tomorrow and my wife is working, gonna start in on the 70-646 when she leaves for the day.

Lemonade727

I'm a little confused for what I need to do for LUT1...

1. All of this is just going to be a spoken presentation with no corresponding powerpoint or anything, correct? So the outline will basically be close to the same outline I created in task 3 of LAT1?

2. For the visual aid that will be used during the presentation, is it ok for this to only be applicable to 1 of the three main points?

Hypntick wrote: »

Already posted this in the MCITP section but....

70-640 Passed!
Well, that was rough. Lot of DNS I noticed, a lot more than I thought there would be. Amusingly enough CS was my lowest area, even though in my practice tests that was my strong point. Used the MS press book, Labsim, Technet, and my home lab. In addition I do tend to do this kind of stuff on a day to day basis, most of it anyways. Taking the evening off and as i'm off work tomorrow and my wife is working, gonna start in on the 70-646 when she leaves for the day.

I know I mentioned this earlier today as well but congrats!

erpadmin

Well, I have some good news. This might even help others in the same boat as I'm in.

As many of you know, I have one class left with WGU, BHV1....(MS 70-643). I failed it yesterday, and since it was my third attempt, that means I have to wait two weeks to take the MS exam.

After begging my mentor to see if I can get an extension on that December 30th deadline to be included in the Winter Commencement book, I have until January 10th to pass the exam. They will rush my records with a pass and have me on the commencement book, but it can't be any later than that because they have to do it by the 10th to get the book published. I'm now super-motivated to get this thing passed.

petedude

erpadmin wrote: »

As many of you know, I have one class left with WGU, BHV1....(MS 70-643). I failed it yesterday, and since it was my third attempt, that means I have to wait two weeks to take the MS exam.

Bummer that you didn't pass, but good that they're still able to accommodate you.

Not sure you want to advertise that extension, though, as that may be something your mentor had to pull strings to get-- not every mentor may be able (or will be inclined) to push for that.

Misery loves company, too. . . as I still have my last Java assignment in progress. There's a snowball's chance in you know where that I would finish by 12/31 anyway. I'm already lining up vacation time in 2012 to work on it.

erpadmin

petedude wrote: »

Not sure you want to advertise that extension, though, as that may be something your mentor had to pull strings to get-- not every mentor may be able (or will be inclined) to push for that.

I was under the impression that they were doing that anyway. I suspect we're not the only students that are in that predicament.

My mentor had called me back after only a couple of minutes to give me that news. If strings were pulled it would have taken much longer than that. I was also not left with the impression that I could not share this information. If I was, I would have honored that.

We will see what happens. I have to spend my "vacation" gunning for this test, which begins today. All of the resources I have listed in my MCITP thread will be utilized and I have to do more "writing" down of the topics I have seen in the past exams I had taken. I refuse to let this be the wall I'm hitting to stop me from having a degree mailed to me (and another to my parents. Only $25 to have that sent to them. They can buy their own frame. Haha.)

LinuxRacr

Good luck man. You can do this.

hiddenknight821

I just finished my last WGU assessment, BSV1 (ICND2) for the term today. To be honest with you guys, I actually failed this test twice, and I felt so humilated with my academic progress at WGU. BSV1 was the first course in my AAV along with ORC1 and MCG1. After my first fail, I decided to disappear from this forum for a while, because I felt the TE community was looking down at me. I wanted to avoid discouragements as much as I can. I understand I made personal goals and promises that I failed to meet, but we all made mistakes. We all have dream. Don't we? I started in July and didn't hit the books until September after I finished my internship. I have been unemployed since that time. I regretted procrastinating big time, and I don't really have any legitimate reason to do so. I guess I was afraid of overworking myself, but you guys have been doing that everyday 24/7 with full-time jobs.

Some of you guys said ORC1 and MCG1 were a breeze without study, and I was hoping for the same. However, I found it a little difficult to pass without studying or going over the materials. I had to spend two weeks on each assessment (including the mandatory five-day wait period for proctored exam at a local testing center). I told my mentor that I would be probably better off finishing up the assessments I have been saving for last before I retake the difficult ICND2 exam or I would not be able to complete enough SAP for financial aid next term. This is the reason why I was a little embarrassed. Not only I could have only completed 75% of SAP, but I would have gotten my first "Not Passed" on my official transcript. I thanked God for the pass today! Someone told me faith without hard work is no good. So don't expect the good Lord to bring miracle if you're only putting in minimal or no amount of effort. Well, there you have it... My first 6 months of WGU experience, and I'm certainly not a role model you should look up to if you don't want to make the same mistake. I wish I have completed 2 or 3 more courses before this term ends, but what matter is that I finished my SAP 100%. By the way, I want to thank the TE community for being honest about their failure and success stories within the last few months while I was hiding and studying, and I really appreciated it. It really helped motivated me and others. I think my best bet is to share my next update when my next term ends since I learned my lesson to keep my goals to myself. However, I still accurately update my signature and certification lists as soon as possible each time I pass an assessment or cert.

LinuxRacr

You are not alone, and we will all make mistakes. As long as we learn from them, we are good to go. It looks like YOU are good to go. Keep at it, and don't beat yourself up too much. Please tell me the same if and when I have a motivation problem.

hiddenknight821

LinuxRacr wrote: »

You are not alone, and we will all make mistakes. As long as we learn from them, we are good to go. It looks like YOU are good to go. Keep at it, and don't beat yourself up too much. Please tell me the same if and when I have a motivation problem.

Thanks LinuxRacr. I know I'm making good progress so far, but I was one of those people who said they would finish 40+ CUs in one term yet failed to do so. I started out with 46 CUs, and I have been unemployed since the beginning of September. For someone, 46 CUs is very doable in one term, but apparently I wasn't able to accomplish that. That let me down big time. What's even worse is that I may have to do an additional term for the final project (Technical Writing and Capstone) alone, which is not acceptable since I was convinced that I have more potential than that. High potential alone is not good enough. Motivation and self-discipline are also the key ingredients to success at WGU. Now I realized it's time for me to swallow my pride and just move on. Everyone has a different pace, and I'm starting to accept mine.

A good unbiased indicator of your motivation is your SAP. You must make sure you hit that 100%. If not, then you know what you need to work on. However, if you average.. let's say 25 CUs, then you need to make sure you hit around that average or more each term. Taking up your whole term with only 3 MCTS exam is not exactly a good indicator, so consider this an exception.

swild

I had my intro call with my "Fast Start" Mentor today. She said that she had a student in September that finished 74 CUs in one term. I am fairly confident that I can finish 60 in one term. I only have 3 liberal arts classes that didn't transfer in: CLC1, BNC1, and MGC1. I took the pre-assessments for all 3 and passed. I was surprised that the cut score on BNC1 and MGC1 is 51%. I made 69% and 83%, respectively.

I am starting with WFV1, CLC1 and DFV1. I should have those finished by the end of January and then start on KET1. All of the objective assessments I am confident that I can knock out. However, the performance assessments are another story. I only have 2 classes that have those and they are KET1 and KFT1 (and the capstone).

I have an average of 2 weeks to finish each course in order to finish in one term. Here we go...

Lemonade727

Got the pass from Task 1 in LUT1, now I just need to perform the presentation and planning on doing that Friday morning. How much time can you spend without looking into the camera, such as looking at note cards? Trying to figure out how to best accomplish stating all of my in-text citation sources during the presentation as some of the sources contain 4-5 names alone and I may not be able to remember all of them. Don't want them to send the task back because the sources didn't exactly match the reference page.

erpadmin

Relax....Task 1 was the hardest task in LUT1. Task 2 is easy. This is exactly how I handled Task 2 and I did not get this one back (I got Task 1 back, but that was because I rushed the tasks out without fully understanding it and when I contacted the course mentor, she got real snarky...lmao, sometimes I just had to let stuff go...) See below:






· Presenters Script With In-Text Citation ERPADMIN LUT1.rtf
Presenters Script With In-Text Citation





· References ERPADMIN LUT1.rtf
(What I stated here was I took most of the sources from my LAT1 Bibliography and put them here so that I covered my bases. Anything that I used for my overall presentation went into this modified bibliography )





· References(Visual Aid Only) ERPADMIN LUT1.rtf
References for Visual Aid Only





· Visual Aid With In-Text Citation ERPADMIN LUT1.rtf





For the visual aid, I took a printout of chart and put it behind me. I took that same printout, pasted it in Word and used the in-text citation from my LAT1 source. If for some reason you went a different route for LUT1 and you have to cite another source, use bibme.org and call it a day.

Lastly, you are supposed to look at the camera/audience the entire time. What you are gonna do for this is have your "audience member" hold up your notes in front of you and act as your homemade teleprompter (yup, yup...let all your chuckles out now....lol). After you are done reading from your teleprompter, your "audience member" will then ask you the questions you already made up and then you give your stock response.

That's it...that's how you deal with LUT1. LUT1 is the only class in WGU (aside from those programming classes where you need a partner) that you have to involve another individual. In my case, it's the only class I had like that.

Lemonade727

erpadmin wrote: »

*snip*

Thanks for the response!

All the sources that I used were from the LAT1 tasks I submitted, I decided to keep it at the full 10 I used since I already had all of the material ready to be used for the presentation. So I have the references page setup and ready, but do I need to include them in my speech such as "According to Sloan, Ostermann, Picone, Conover, and Donald H. Taylord, yadda yadda yadda"? That is just one of the references as they all took part in the book the information is pulled from.

I wasn't even thinking about having my wife hold up the script for me to read off of, that'll make it a lot easier. I'll prepare the script completely this evening, just curious if it's required to include them all in the speech even though I have the references page showing where the information came from.

Also for the visual aid, I did the same thing that you did and put in a chart along with the in-text citation next to it. Did you print it out onto standard letter paper and put it up behind you? If so, do they really need to be able to read all of the text on it from the video or is the separate attachment enough to prove the information is there and cited?

erpadmin

Lemonade727 wrote: »

Thanks for the response!

All the sources that I used were from the LAT1 tasks I submitted, I decided to keep it at the full 10 I used since I already had all of the material ready to be used for the presentation. So I have the references page setup and ready, but do I need to include them in my speech such as "According to Sloan, Ostermann, Picone, Conover, and Donald H. Taylord, yadda yadda yadda"? That is just one of the references as they all took part in the book the information is pulled from.

You won't need to include it in your speech, UNLESS you are going to directly quote an author--then you will say something like "According to what such-and-such author stated in such-and-such book" (or something to that effect). Otherwise, you are just going to spout out the drivel.

Lemonade727 wrote: »

Also for the visual aid, I did the same thing that you did and put in a chart along with the in-text citation next to it. Did you print it out onto standard letter paper and put it up behind you? If so, do they really need to be able to read all of the text on it from the video or is the separate attachment enough to prove the information is there and cited?

Yes, it was printed on 8.5x11 paper and then was taped on my 22" monitor behind me. No, you could not read the table on the video, but it didn't matter as I was sending it off to the graders anyhow. My "audience" (the wife) could read the table that I presented, but her whole purpose was just to act as a teleprompter and then ask her prepared questions so that I could answer them.

If you do a search on youtube for "WGU LUT1" you'll find a bunch of real life examples as to how your presentation should look. Between that, and the guidance I gave you, LUT1 will pretty much be a done deal for you. Remember though that, the visual aid does NOT have to be readable on the video (at least it wasn't for me...)--it just had to be there.

Lemonade727

erpadmin wrote: »

You won't need to include it in your speech, UNLESS you are going to directly quote an author--then you will say something like "According to what such-and-such author stated in such-and-such book" (or something to that effect). Otherwise, you are just going to spout out the drivel.



Yes, it was printed on 8.5x11 paper and then was taped on my 22" monitor behind me. No, you could not read the table on the video, but it didn't matter as I was sending it off to the graders anyhow. My "audience" (the wife) could read the table that I presented, but her whole purpose was just to act as a teleprompter and then ask her prepared questions so that I could answer them.

If you do a search on youtube for "WGU LUT1" you'll find a bunch of real life examples as to how your presentation should look. Between that, and the guidance I gave you, LUT1 will pretty much be a done deal for you. Remember though that, the visual aid does NOT have to be readable on the video (at least it wasn't for me...)--it just had to be there.

That was exactly the response I was hoping for. Thanks again for all of the help and this will definitely be recorded Friday morning and submitted. Time to have my mentor add in IWC1 and IWT1.

LinuxRacr

Just had my mentor meeting, and it looks like my first term (so far) will line up like so:

WFV1..........IT Fundamentals I
AXV1...........IT FUndamentals II
CPV1...........IT Fundamentals III
BNC1...........Organized Behavior and Leadership

Hopefully I can knock out the BNC1 quickly, and then tackle the others, while possibly adding more courses.

Lemonade727

Got home last night feeling good about the presentation and decided to try and knock it out then. Just received word back from TaskStream that it was sufficient enough to pass

I hate doing any kind of public speaking and presenting so I thought I would be OK in my own home just doing this in front of the camera with no one but my wife there, but as soon as I stepped in front of the camera all that confidence disappeared and the traits of a bad speaker came out. But after a while I got it under control and finished out the presentation. 6 more courses until graduation!

erpadmin

Good job! Told ya that you had nothing to worry about.

Looks like IWC1 is your last OLP exam...when is your term up again?