Student Experiences at Western Governors University (WGU)

earweed

themagicone wrote: »

Anyone else have those day(s) where they just don't have any motivation? I need to get INT1 done but I just hate writing papers. Focus, just need to focus... At least I know I'm ready for A+ Essentials right away. Still on track to finish A+ then S+ by mid September. 36+ CU this term I'm hoping.

The big part about INT1 is to format properly and to follow what the rubric wants.

themagicone

Just submitted the final task, 9 pages total. I took the outline that was on the science community and used that as an outline. I made it sorta of like a list. I emailed the course mentors for approval to do so and they said great idea. Now the waiting game...

apena7

After 29 pages of madness, I submitted my capstone assignment yesterday and just received a grade of 3.92/4.00. I'm now a college graduate!

Big thanks to cablegod, who referred me back in 2008.

Time to celebrate and then hit the books again! My subscription for Books24x7 doesn't expire until the end of September -- time to focus on some certs!

The road goes ever on and on....

Bl8ckr0uter

Congrats dude!

earweed

Congrats Apena7

So your term ends in September? If you want any MS certs between now and then jump on the 50% off student discount.

mikej412

apena7 wrote: »

I'm now a college graduate!

Congratulations!!

veritas_libertas

apena7 wrote: »

After 29 pages of madness, I submitted my capstone assignment yesterday and just received a grade of 3.92/4.00. I'm now a college graduate!

Congratz!

TheDailyMel

apena7 wrote: »

After 29 pages of madness, I submitted my capstone assignment yesterday and just received a grade of 3.92/4.00. I'm now a college graduate!

Congrats!!

ScottFern

Hey guys, I just started reading thread today and it got me thinking about my future education.

Here is my scenario.......

Cash to spend $12,000

Scenario A) Originally all along I was planning on taking another Training Camp course and get my CCNP. I know the cost to fly out to Pennsylvania and to take the 2 week course is roughly $12,000. Once I get my CCNP I would look for a more senior Network Engineer position.

Scenario Recently, I threw around the idea of getting my Masters in InfoSec from WGU. My prior certifications are security focused, not that I have many. I do have my Security+ and MCSE 2003: Security as well as my CCNA. I have my bachelors in Political Science but the prereq's for the InfoSec Masters is any bachelors and Security+ cert. Also, it appears the cost is $12,000 over the 2 years to get it.

Scenario A definitely has a faster impact as I could potentially have my CCNP in 2 weeks from the time I take the course, but it also expires in 3 years whereas my Masters would follow me for the rest of my life and I can pay 3k every 6 months instead of it all up front.

cablegod

apena7 wrote: »

After 29 pages of madness, I submitted my capstone assignment yesterday and just received a grade of 3.92/4.00. I'm now a college graduate!

Big thanks to cablegod, who referred me back in 2008.

Time to celebrate and then hit the books again! My subscription for Books24x7 doesn't expire until the end of September -- time to focus on some certs!

The road goes ever on and on....

Awesome dude! Huge congrats are in order.

TheQGuru

Scott,

It looks like you are in the position I was in a few years ago. I had some training $ I wanted to spend but I wanted to get the biggest bang for my money. I decided to do self study and focus on security. My thoughts were that most security certs were vender neutral and that proof security knowledge on my resume would never be bad.

I got my Security+ and than my CISSP. All by reading ($150 Books), using TestOut ($1300) and practice test by Selftest ($200). The 2 certs cost $750 together. Once I hammered out those 2 it seemed CISM and CISA was were a breeze ($1000) for those 2 for testing. You already have Securtiy+ so you have 4 of the 10 domains for the CISSP taking care of.

Now that I focused all my attention on those Certs I believe my Master track in WGU is going to be a breeze at least on the cert side.

bwcarty

apena7 wrote: »

After 29 pages of madness, I submitted my capstone assignment yesterday and just received a grade of 3.92/4.00. I'm now a college graduate!

Congrats!

I just submitted my TWA1 proposal last night, and it has already been graded. My term ends on 7/31, so I'm under the gun to get things wrapped up with the Capstone by then.

uhtrinity

bwcarty wrote: »

Congrats!

I just submitted my TWA1 proposal last night, and it has already been graded. My term ends on 7/31, so I'm under the gun to get things wrapped up with the Capstone by then.

When I did mine I went in this order:

Portfolio
Tech Writing
Capstone

Ideally The portfolio should have come last, but since it was a project I had already completed it worked out. This was an IP camera system.

Week 1 - Portfolio - Pulled together my 4 portfolio items. Network diagrams, physical layout map / logical layout, server buildout list and pricing, and IP Table. Wrote about 7 pages giving history of IP cameras and a narrative of part of the process, mainly planning the technical requirements and troubleshooting requirements that fell low.

Week 2 - Tech Writing - Using the Portfolio as a base, minus the hard data that showed the project was finished ...... wrote up a narrative of how the project could be accomplished, also added 4 examples of other school districts that implemented similar systems. By this point the paper was around 30 pages.

Week3 - Capstone - used material from the two previous papers, changed most of the content to past tense, added the results, hard data, user guides, and a conclusion. Each assignment passed on the first try with and average score of 3.8.

Just make sure you follow the rubric and supplied examples and you will do fine..

earweed

The March program change took away the Portfolio from the Network Design and management program.
You got yours all done in 3 weeks?

uhtrinity

earweed wrote: »

The March program change took away the Portfolio from the Network Design and management program.
You got yours all done in 3 weeks?

Another thing I didn't know. During my time there were at least 3 program changes. At least they were (mostly) improvements.

Yes, 3 weeks, which shocked me. Mostly because Dr Vance had approved a project I had completed in the prior year. That project however took about 3 months to fully implement.

Screenshot of the system I used, left low res for obvious reasons.

bwcarty

uhtrinity wrote: »

Another thing I didn't know. During my time there were at least 3 program changes. At least they were (mostly) improvements.

Yes, 3 weeks, which shocked me. Mostly because Dr Vance had approved a project I had completed in the prior year. That project however took about 3 months to fully implement.

The changes back in March saved me from having to sign up for a third term. If I would've known them ahead of time, I would be finished by now since two of the more time consuming classes I took were waived after the face.

I started on my TWA1 proposal on 7/5, and I was also working from a project I completed a year ago, so I had most of my content in my head from the get go. Dr. Vance also sent me a sample of a recently approved proposal and capstone that dealt with similar topics (server virtualization), which I used as the basis for the length of each section for my paper.

I submitted the proposal Friday at 6PM, and it was graded Saturday morning...final score was 3.94/4.00.

uhtrinity

bwcarty wrote: »

The changes back in March saved me from having to sign up for a third term. If I would've known them ahead of time, I would be finished by now since two of the more time consuming classes I took were waived after the face.

I started on my TWA1 proposal on 7/5, and I was also working from a project I completed a year ago, so I had most of my content in my head from the get go. Dr. Vance also sent me a sample of a recently approved proposal and capstone that dealt with similar topics (server virtualization ), which I used as the basis for the length of each section for my paper.

I submitted the proposal Friday at 6PM, and it was graded Saturday morning...final score was 3.94/4.00.

I did the same thing, modeled my paper section by section after the example then compared that to the rubric. I believe it was the same virtualization paper.

veritas_libertas

Do you get much lee-way on the subjects you can choose for the capstone project?

uhtrinity

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Do you get much lee-way on the subjects you can choose for the capstone project?

Yes, but Dr Vance gets more excited if you write about something that is original, which is why I stuck with my IP Camera client / server system. He will also tell you, and I can attest, write about what you know. The Capstone will be a breeze if you do this. Your research and citations should support what you already know.

I had also proposed:

New network design for new facility in the 2011 - 2012 school year, but it was to far out, too speculative, and had the potential to be too broad a topic

Technology in Education, possibly our Smart Board (Mimio) Technology, but that was getting farther from Network Administration.

He liked the IP camera idea as no one had used that topic yet and there is an network administration aspect to it. It also met the requirement of using multiple IT disciplines.

On AYP formatting, they aren't too picky as long as you stick with the basics.

themagicone

Alright this is kinda of upsetting. I'm in the A+ class (IT II and III), they send you these books - which must cost something - but they are worthless. Instructor annotated guides? How is that going to help? Send me the one everyone tells me to buy - A+ All in One Mike Meyers. It's $36 on Amazon. If in the end I'm providing the books, what am I paying WGU for? A voucher? That is a lot cheaper than the 3k I gave them for the term. I'm pretty sure I can pass the test but I want to learn a little more out of it than just passing the test. I also got a worthless book for my Security + class... Seems like someone picked what ever book gave them the best discount. Ok rant over.

earweed

I felt the same way when taking those courses so rant away.

petedude

themagicone wrote: »

Alright this is kinda of upsetting. . . .Seems like someone picked what ever book gave them the best discount. Ok rant over.

Seems to be a universal complaint, but I think it'll be a while before that changes.

uhtrinity

themagicone wrote: »

Alright this is kinda of upsetting. I'm in the A+ class (IT II and III), they send you these books - which must cost something - but they are worthless. Instructor annotated guides? How is that going to help? Send me the one everyone tells me to buy - A+ All in One Mike Meyers. It's $36 on Amazon. If in the end I'm providing the books, what am I paying WGU for? A voucher? That is a lot cheaper than the 3k I gave them for the term. I'm pretty sure I can pass the test but I want to learn a little more out of it than just passing the test. I also got a worthless book for my Security + class... Seems like someone picked what ever book gave them the best discount. Ok rant over.

You also have access to all of the learning resources, faculty, tutors, multiple retakes on vouchers, etc.

For A+ I did buy a used Mike Meyers book basically because I didn't receive any books. Starting with Project, network, and Security+ they started sending the ILT books which I actually liked and have in my personal library. At a regular University you would be buying all your books out of pocket.

themagicone

uhtrinity wrote: »

You also have access to all of the learning resources, faculty, tutors, multiple retakes on vouchers, etc.

For A+ I did buy a used Mike Meyers book basically because I didn't receive any books. Starting with Project, network, and Security+ they started sending the ILT books which I actually liked and have in my personal library. At a regular University you would be buying all your books out of pocket.

I guess my gripe really is that they send you those books, and to me they seem very broad and not really very good. If they are going to send books (include them) they should go with the ones that everyone says is the best, not the one they get the best discount with. I've taken the measure up pre assessment and the lab sim one and I haven't found the answer to any of those questions in the ILT books so far.

veritas_libertas

themagicone wrote: »

I guess my gripe really is that they send you those books, and to me they seem very broad and not really very good. If they are going to send books (include them) they should go with the ones that everyone says is the best, not the one they get the best discount with. I've taken the measure up pre assessment and the lab sim one and I haven't found the answer to any of those questions in the ILT books so far.

My guess is that they have some sort of deal with CompTIA that allows them to provide them to students at near zero cost to them. As I understand it they only provide books for the CIW and CompTIA classes.

qwertyiop

veritas_libertas wrote: »

My guess is that they have some sort of deal with CompTIA that allows them to provide them to students at near zero cost to them. As I understand it they only provide books for the CIW and CompTIA classes.

Thats correct

uhtrinity

themagicone wrote: »

I guess my gripe really is that they send you those books, and to me they seem very broad and not really very good. If they are going to send books (include them) they should go with the ones that everyone says is the best, not the one they get the best discount with. I've taken the measure up pre assessment and the lab sim one and I haven't found the answer to any of those questions in the ILT books so far.

The exams are pretty broad and general. IMHO the ILT books are pretty good, but that doesn't mean they are right for you. Try out some of the other learning resources and see what you like.

Unfortunately WGU is non profit, so costs are going to be a big deciding factor on what they do. Based on the previous 5 years at b&m schools getting any kind of book was a welcomed change. Worse case I hit up Amazon for my choice, regardless I was still better off than 10 years ago when I was buying used $100 math and physics texts.

tomahawkeer

Will be scheduling my first cert today (WFV1). Looking forward to getting it out of the way, and moving onto the Fundamentals 2 and 3.

snokerpoker

Good luck on that test. It shouldn't be too bad if you studied the material.

themagicone

Well I picked up the Mike Meyers A+ and N+ books + the S+ one by the same publisher for $100 to my door.