Student Experiences at Western Governors University (WGU)

This thread is intended for students to write about their experiences at Western Governors University.

Please keep it civil, and do not spend your time bashing the school, and its policies. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but if you have a problem you need to take it up with your professor or mentor. Please no Flaming on this thread.

You can ask for help with a referral (used to avoid paying the application fee) on the following thread: http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/55634-wgu-refer-friend-thread-those-seeking-referral.html

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Comments

techie2012

I turned in KFT1 Task 2,3 and 4 on Friday and still no evaluation on any of it. I guess I am experiencing the rather slow end of response.

Valsacar

I just got my "welcome kit" (mail is slow getting over here) and pretty happy... love the coffee cup, could careless about most of the other stuff :P

Hypntick

5 days until 70-680. I'm feeling pretty strong on it, but I know it has tripped a lot of folks up. A lot of the concepts are similar to the ones in the server exams so i'm highly confident. Once that's done, i'll be through. I was told that to start the MS track i'd need to wait until my official term end which is August 31st and then a mandatory 3 month waiting period after that. I've got some task stream stuff for the initial classes i'm going to take so I think after a month off i'll go ahead and try and knock out as much as I can before day 1.

Also from what i've heard from my boss, I can expect a bit of a bump once I have the diploma to show them. Woo!

jmasterj206

I just thought I'd let you guys know I finished my BSIT degree at WGU as of Sunday. I thought the two programming classes were going to kill me, but I made it through. I should have been done last term, but Microsoft decided to tinker with their Server exams and made them nearly impossible to pass. I hear they aren't as bad anymore. So it took me a total of 2 years doing around 30 credits per term with a lost term thanks to MS.

I know most people paint a flawless picture of WGU and for the most part it has been great, but I have had some issues. For instance when I was working on the MS server exams I had set up a regular schedule to meet with one of the course mentors and for them most part he never called and basically blew me off. I talked to his supervisor due to my frustration and he basically told me he didn't believe me and it should be my responsibility to call the course mentor if he wasn't contacting me. That whole experience really soured my impression of the school.

As far as student mentors both of mine have been great. My first mentor was great and got promoted and my latest mentor has been great. I have never had any of the troubles that I have seen some of the other posts here.

I can't say that I am a fan of Taskstream. I can't count how many times that I have had work returned for missing parts when all they had to do was scroll to the next page or just blatantly missing pages. I also hated when they would give your cryptic revisions needed notes. When I first started 2 years ago a lot of the assignments were graded within 24 hours. Now it seems to be 3-5 days.

If I were to do it all over again I would have stuck with the generic IT degree from the start. MS and Cisco exams are cheap compared to Comptia. WGU doesn't really give you any great resources for either that you couldn't obtain on your own. I can see taking Comptia through WGU, but I think you would be better off working on MS and Cisco on your own. I don't see a good ROI by taking them through WGU. Unless of course you are getting school paid for or Pell grants. In my case, I was paying totally on my own.

I think WGU is going through some growing pains and hopefully they can get them straightened out, because I think it is a good model and overall I enjoyed my experience there.

I think I am going to take a few months off and I have to do a few oddball certs for work and then start looking at Master's programs. I haven't totally ruled out WGU for it but as of right now I am leaning towards going elsewhere.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone here for their help through the experience and I hope I was able to help others as well.

Psoasman

Congrats on getting through the program!

spiderjericho

Congrats, JmasterJ206. Do you know if there is a survey or feedback for the program? Just from the year or so I've been following this thread, I can see a lot of areas the school needs to improve in.

N2IT

Received my first pass QRT2. It took two attempts but I finally got it.

I have one more task in JDT2 and that will be done as well. I'll be honest this is much harder than I thought it would be. It's good for me though.

JmasterJ Gratz on the pass btw!

themagicone

Hypntick, What MS are you taking? If you are taking the new network management one I can send you the COS and task instruction for the courses. If you have 5 months before you "officially start" you could be half way done with the degree. In 2 months part time I have finished 14 CU. I'll have 16 to 18 by end of next month. Then I am going to wait till another term to finish.

demonfurbie

congrats jmaster

i still have those programming classes so any info you could pm me would be great

Hypntick

@themagicone i'm actually looking at the MS:ISA degree. I think with say 4 months of nothing to do, I could reasonably knock out all the work for 5 task stream classes and probably get in enough study time to pass a cert. I have no intention of the degree taking me longer than 6 months at this point. Nothing i've seen in the task stream stuff that i've seen leads me to believe it will take me longer than that. Thanks for the offer though!

Drovor

Just spoke with my mentor for the first time and it looks like I'll have WFV1, CUV1, BNC1, and MGC1 for term 1. Hopefully I'll be able to complete one or two more course before the term is up. If I don't get the job I was applying for recently the only positive will be that I will have more study time at work!

@ JmasterJ206 - Congrats on your degree! Also thanks for your feedback on your experiences at WGU.

kgb

Drovor wrote: »

Just spoke with my mentor for the first time and it looks like I'll have WFV1, CUV1, BNC1, and MGC1 for term 1. Hopefully I'll be able to complete one or two more course before the term is up. If I don't get the job I was applying for recently the only positive will be that I will have more study time at work!

@ JmasterJ206 - Congrats on your degree! Also thanks for your feedback on your experiences at WGU.

Beauty of WGU is you get exactly what you put into it. My advice is go full speed from the beginning.

amcnow

Valsacar wrote: »

I just got my "welcome kit" (mail is slow getting over here) and pretty happy... love the coffee cup, could careless about most of the other stuff :P

Wow! It only took 3 weeks to receive mine.

BTW: You are definitely going at a faster pace than me. How are you liking MSISA so far?

taternuts666

I just got accepted today. Entered in the IT-Network Admin program. I'm just waiting on the financial aid department now. Anyone have any bad/good experiences with their financial aid department?

I'm not starting until Sept 1st actually because I'm taking my Network+ exam in late July and that will waive 1 of the classes, but I'd like to get everything "ready to go" if possible.

amcnow

taternuts666 wrote: »

I just got accepted today. Entered in the IT-Network Admin program. I'm just waiting on the financial aid department now. Anyone have any bad/good experiences with their financial aid department?

I'm not starting until Sept 1st actually because I'm taking my Network+ exam in late July and that will waive 1 of the classes, but I'd like to get everything "ready to go" if possible.

Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with the financial aid department. I am using the remainder of my GI Bill and receiving tuition reimbursement from my employer.

Congratulations on being accepted, BTW! Out of curiosity, which course is WGU offering to waive for Net+? Unless it is a recent change, I don't think it is a direct requirement your program.

Drovor

I'm still waiting to hear back from financial aid but I can say to make sure you have all the documents submitted and have the green check marks. If you don't need any loans make sure to send an email to them and they can remove that portion from the requirement.

Drovor

kgb wrote: »

Beauty of WGU is you get exactly what you put into it. My advice is go full speed from the beginning.

Thanks, that is what I plan on doing as long as it doesn't affect too much of the family life.

taternuts666

amcnow wrote: »

Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with the financial aid department. I am using the remainder of my GI Bill and receiving tuition reimbursement from my employer.

Congratulations on being accepted, BTW! Out of curiosity, which course is WGU offering to waive for Net+? Unless it is a recent change, I don't think it is a direct requirement your program.

My enrollment counselor said they would waive the intro networking class I believe.

swild

taternuts666 wrote: »

My enrollment counselor said they would waive the intro networking class I believe.

If you only have the CCENT in your studies, then that's the intro networking class and you will be fine. However, if you have the CCNA in your studies, you have to take the intro test to be certified.

usagent27

DFV1 claims another victim. Does anyone have any good resources for this? the book we get is complete garbage and only 5% of the stuff in the book was on my exam....

really frustrated about this particular exam

natv

I purchased MeasureUp to supplement the other resources (based on feedback from other students who said that MeasureUp really helps for this exam)

I wouldn't rely only it on though, but it helped with some questions, and this exam is retarded in the way that there is such a large body of knowledge required and yet the exam only has around 35 multiple choice questions. This means EVERY question counts a LOT and it really doesn't take that many wrong answers to fail this exam, so every little bit helps.

I luckily passed the first time but only because I make sure to really prepare after reading other student's experiences in the community forums. I did all the labs in the book (except for the case study lab projects), watched the LearnKey videos, the videos on the asp.net site (the study notes link to them), did some uCertify practice tests and then MeasureUp.

The book actually does cover everything on the exam (for the most part), the problem is that something may have been very briefly mentioned in the book or casually mentioned in the book. MeasureUp really showed me that as it asked some things that I didn't think the book covered but then went searching through the book and found it briefly mentioned.

Even though the course mentor sent out that email about the program versions.. I didn't find it that much of a problem. I was using Visual Studio 2010 and only in a few labs did was I not able to get it working just right (but that may have helped in a way because it forced me to Google my errors and try to see what I'm missing). Mostly my issue was that the book assumed that the web.config file for example already had a particular section (that we needed to ADD something to as part of the lab), but my web.config (the default for Visual Studio 2010 I guess) didn't even had that section so I had to go figure out what I need to put and where... so that kind of thing.

Pishof

3.84/4 - B.S IT capstone graded. Finally finished and just waiting on graduation process now. Feels good.

Psoasman

Very nice! Congrats!

boredgamelad

Congrats! When did you start, Pishof?

kgb

Congrats!! Can't wait to be able to say that myself:)

Hypntick

Congrats Pishof!

For those of us that are finishing here shortly, anyone doing the winter commencement?

Pishof

Thanks all. Started last March, 2011. I was planning on finishing in two terms instead of three but the MCITP:SA exams slowed me down much more than anticipated.

Just waiting on graduation paperwork to go through so I can bring that piece of paper into work and negotiate a raise.

Edit: I'm enrolled in WGU Indiana so our commencement is in the fall.

Legacy User

does anyone fly to the graduation ceremony i see some people arent interested in going through it. Is that because those guys dont think its a real deal degree regardless of the accreditation. I know i'll go to the ceremony once i'm done its a huge milestone for me.

swild

It's a huge milestone for me as well, but I just can't justify the expense. It's just like my wedding. We spent a total of $200 on the license and the justice of the peace to marry us in our living room. Why spend more when we can spend less for the exact same outcome? Her father even gave us $5000 for the wedding and was extremely happy when we put it our savings and had the bare minimum wedding.

I paid my tuition and have my degree. Why double my expenses to just walk in a silly costume?

Hypntick

Chances are i'm not going to walk for my BS degree, however when I finish the MS, I have every intention of doing so. I think my mother would kill me if I didn't, she needs that photo op since I did homeschool and didn't have a traditional graduation.