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

SteveLord

You can get referrals from WGU students here, on Reddit or other places on the internet.

ImThe0ne

prtexas wrote: »

Ok, so here is my big question. 44yrs old, 10 yrs in IT field, mostly linux oriented, no certs or degree. 25 yrs ago I took 1 year 1/2 of college. None of these courses will transfer, all music courses, will AGU "find out" about it if I dont tell them and just say "never been to college."? Reason I'm asking is when trying to get transcript online was adv will not release due to past due bill from 25 yrs ago of $536. How do you prove a negative? (ie that you don't owe it when they say you do from 25 yrs ago.lol) Anyway, I can pay it to get the transcript if I absolutely have too....but since I will be doing student loans I would rather not have to pay out that kind of personal expense for something that wont go towards IT degree. Have not started the app process yet before I find out what others think on this issue.

2nd question - I read on a board a few years ago they were offering to waive the $65 app fee if you get a referral from existing or past student. Is this still true? If it is still true, can I get a referral from someone for myself and a co-worker who will also be going to start WGU about the same time?

Have a few other questions, but will wait for answers to these two first.
thanks,
JP

Id be happy to send you guys some referrals. Enable your Private Message under your account on this website and I will PM to get the info and send you referrals for both.

On the other potion, I don't know that you are required by any stretch to send over your transcripts. If you feel that you would like to go through from beginning to end, that should be your decision. Especially since those credits are from 25yrs ago, I would use the argument that you have forgotten everything from that time period in college and you want to relearn it.

WGU tends to be pretty good about being straight and honest with you, I would be honest with them and say you had been to college 25yrs ago, but you'd rather not try to transfer anything in and would rather start over complete.

jak096

They do a search to find every college you attended so you will need to list all schools. Just explain your situation.

SteveLord

I have a similar issue. Technical school back in 2004. Course on CompTIA and MCSE (Server 2000) type stuff. I told them the transcripts are likely of no value.

Have a call Monday again and hopefully we'll proceed with the next steps. Got all my military items taken care of (that was confusing as hell.)

Only other thing is that I plan to try for the military scholarship.

vmixer

ImThe0ne wrote: »

Especially since those credits are from 25yrs ago, I would use the argument that you have forgotten everything from that time period in college and you want to relearn it.

WGU tends to be pretty good about being straight and honest with you, I would be honest with them and say you had been to college 25yrs ago, but you'd rather not try to transfer anything in and would rather start over complete.

I tried that, I hadn't been to college in over 20 years, yet they wanted to see a transcript. I had only taken three classes at the CC over 2 semesters. They also did a professional eval and looked at my linked in. I work at a fortune 500 but I am a degree program that doesn't relate to my work experience. I have 20 years exp doing tech work, but I want to move into finance, and to help expand my husbands business.

Anyway, they said I passed admission tests but they wanted to see proof of some sort of class even if it was from 1992. I was bummed because I had taken a ton of Coursera classes and was hoping they'd be happy with those but whatever (they helped me accelerate A LOT.

In the end I sent them my community college script and they took gave me 3Cu for a math class I had taken.

Which is hystiercal, because now I get to be in Algebra after 20 years of no math. Luckily Ive been refreshing on kahn academy for awhile and I put math off until Term 2 (june 1 start, already have 16 cu!)

prtexas

ImThe0ne wrote: »

Id be happy to send you guys some referrals. Enable your Private Message under your account on this website and I will PM to get the info and send you referrals for both.

On the other potion, I don't know that you are required by any stretch to send over your transcripts. If you feel that you would like to go through from beginning to end, that should be your decision. Especially since those credits are from 25yrs ago, I would use the argument that you have forgotten everything from that time period in college and you want to relearn it.

WGU tends to be pretty good about being straight and honest with you, I would be honest with them and say you had been to college 25yrs ago, but you'd rather not try to transfer anything in and would rather start over complete.

Still waiting for approval from admin to give me PM rights. I replied to email from initial registration as requested, but it has not been done. Do referrals for WGU get anything?

prtexas

jak096 wrote: »

They do a search to find every college you attended so you will need to list all schools. Just explain your situation.

Well hopefully they wont need the transcript...if they absolutely do, Ill pay the $533 but see if I can get it back via student loan proceeds.

prtexas

vmixer wrote: »

In the end I sent them my community college script and they took gave me 3Cu for a math class I had taken. Which is hystiercal, because now I get to be in Algebra after 20 years of no math. Luckily Ive been refreshing on kahn academy for awhile and I put math off until Term 2 (june 1 start, already have 16 cu!)

Ive been amazed at how many more resourced are available online now vs 4 years ago when I was considering taking classes again.

prtexas

So I know with my existing knowledge from my IT job that I could pass A+, Network + and Linux cert with just a short amount of study. I have read that you can start classes in any order. Any suggestions on the classes to start with that are related to A+ and Network +?

Codyy

I don't know if anyone else has had this issue but I'm seriously confused about my degree plan. I started mid 2013 and my track has changed so much(classes that I once completed have either been renamed, worth more/less credit, done away with, replaced, etc..) ..at this point it's going to take 151 CU's to graduate from a program that supposedly requires 124 CU's. I am switching from BS: IT to IT Security so the addition of CCNA and CCNA Security is an added 18 CU requirement for 3 classes which I understand, but I'm having a hard time making sense of the rest. My current track of BS: IT portal degree plan shows 102/135 ..again, 135 CU's I'd need to complete in order to graduate from a program that supposedly requires 120.

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I don't get it. My only guess is that I once completed classes that were part of an old track, they were added to my total completed CU's, but the classes in the new track weren't replaced by what I had already completed, so they were just tacked on equaling a requirement of more CU's in the end. No clue if I explained that well enough to make sense. Anyone got anything?

goatama

@=Codyy

Have you talked to your student mentor? Mine was always able to explain exactly how my program changes would affect my graduation. I did end up having to take one or two more classes than originally planned, but I also got to skip a couple that made me want to gouge my eyes out, so it was an overall win for me. But she always told me exactly how it affected my end game.

goatama

Another thing is that your widget on the homepage of the student portal isn't always the best thing to use. Mine currently says 67/94 CUs when I just started my Master's. Which is a total of 27 CUs since I already had my C|EH. I've also discovered that if you didn't complete a class when your program changed over, or if you just didn't finish one during the term, it'll say "Not Passed" on your transcript and I think that plays with your CUs needed as well.

Codyy

goatama,

I've mentioned it to my mentor a couple of times, most recently today, and he just said that switching to the Security track requires more CU's. Well, that's true, but it only requires 4 more CU's than the standard BS IT. He didn't address my question of what's with me having to complete 135 and eventually 151 after I make the track switch for programs that only require 120 and 124. I'll try to explain it again during our next phone call.

I haven't pushed it too much because I think WGU is the greatest thing since sliced bread and my mentor's always been cool. I've also had a few "requirement satisfied" due to me completing higher tier courses so I've been just overlooking this and going with the flow ..but at the same time I don't want to complete 151 CU's if in the end if I really just needed 124 to graduate. If I never get an answer to this than oh well, I like WGU enough to complete whatever need be to finish up.

My transcript and degree plan also don't match up like you mentioned, one says I've completed 100 and the other says 102. Appreciate the input.

JamesKurtovich

I hate how the assessment scheduler will only allow you to schedule a week in advance and you have to call or email them to get an earlier appointment.

I'm hopefully taking the Critical Thinking and Logic OA tomorrow and putting that course behind me. I spent 4 weeks on this one and it's only worth 3 CUs.

I submitted my 2nd performance task expecting it to get kicked back. The directions were just abysmal and I had no idea what they expected. But I passed with flying colors.

TR4V1STY

JamesKurtovich wrote: »

I hate how the assessment scheduler will only allow you to schedule a week in advance and you have to call or email them to get an earlier appointment.

I'm hopefully taking the Critical Thinking and Logic OA tomorrow and putting that course behind me. I spent 4 weeks on this one and it's only worth 3 CUs.

I submitted my 2nd performance task expecting it to get kicked back. The directions were just abysmal and I had no idea what they expected. But I passed with flying colors.

I've been able to schedule my assessments same-day in most cases. I had to schedule the two A+ tests about 3-4 days in advance, though.

I don't think there is too much harm in submitting Taskstream projects early. I might be wrong, but i don't think there is a limit how many retries you get.

markulous

Whew! Tech Writing is being turned in now. Took about 5 days to do. 32 pages total. Hopefully not too much issues with this and I can write up the Capstone really quick and be all done with school.

techfiend

32?! That would work for capstone wouldn't it? Good luck with your taskstream, you'll be done before you know it. Do you plan on trying masters courses?

jbegarek

Hey guys! I'm in my second semester at WGU for BSIT Network Administration. Transferred in 56 CUs, took 56 CUs in the first semester and now I have only Technical Writing and Capstone left...

Only problem is, I have no idea what to write about! If anyone has any general vague suggestions that'd be awesome... if not, that's cool too, just wish me luck! haha

markulous

techfiend wrote: »

32?! That would work for capstone wouldn't it? Good luck with your taskstream, you'll be done before you know it. Do you plan on trying masters courses?

Well 4 of them are title, table of contents, and references, but I definitely meet the page requirement lol. I just have to add a few things for the Capstone, but I'm not sure exactly what the requirements are.

Nope, I'm going to pass on the Masters. Jobs I'm seeing require a bachelor's but haven't really seen any requiring a masters. Maybe later down the road I'll grab one.

goatama

My technical writing was 40 pages, and my capstone was 56.

markulous

goatama wrote: »

My technical writing was 40 pages, and my capstone was 56.

I'm guessing they don't ding you on too many pages then? This is my first submission, so knowing TaskScream, it'll without a doubt come back with some vague responses.

anoeljr

markulous wrote: »

I'm guessing they don't ding you on too many pages then? This is my first submission, so knowing TaskScream, it'll without a doubt come back with some vague responses.

You should be okay. My tech writing was only like 12 or 13 pages and my capstone was about 15. As long as you follow the rubric then you'll be fine.

markulous

Oh wow I didn't realize the page requirement was that low.

The project I made was a small civil engineering firm needs basically new PCs, new network equipment, upgraded software, and some cloud solutions for things like AD, DNS, DHCP, etc. I guess I could have just gone the easy route and just implemented Azure and O365 and called it a day.

anoeljr

markulous wrote: »

Oh wow I didn't realize the page requirement was that low.

The project I made was a small civil engineering firm needs basically new PCs, new network equipment, upgraded software, and some cloud solutions for things like AD, DNS, DHCP, etc. I guess I could have just gone the easy route and just implemented Azure and O365 and called it a day.

That sounds like a cool project. I'm sure they'll appreciate the work you put into it.

markulous

Hopefully they do. I had fun with it at least.

anoeljr

markulous wrote: »

Hopefully they do. I had fun with it at least.

Good deal. You got something out of it so that's what counts.

TheChameleon

Did you get WGU credit for your CISSP and how much and which classes would it knock out? or where you doing this independently.

I'm in the same boat trying to work on pre-WGU certs but being pushed to work on a CISSP.

Codyy wrote: »

Anyone have any tips for C278 - College Algebra? This is possibly my weakest subject. I took the pre-test and a screenshot of all the questions, my plan is to make sure I know how to answer all of the question-types that were in the pre-test ..and then hope the actual exam is similar. I only left myself a couple of weeks to knock this out, unexpectedly taking CISSP set me back a couple of months.

redworld

TheChameleon wrote: »

Did you get WGU credit for your CISSP and how much and which classes would it knock out? or where you doing this independently.

I'm in the same boat trying to work on pre-WGU certs but being pushed to work on a CISSP.

CISSP only knocks out C178, Network and Security - Applications (4 CU), from what I can tell. Security+ also fulfills that transfer req.

The higher level security certs that can apply to the masters program are listed below...
https://share.wgu.edu/sites/academic/shb/transferguidelines/Documents/IT/Transfer%20Guidelines%20-%20Master%20of%20Science%20in%20Information%20Technology.pdf

markulous

anoeljr wrote: »

Good deal. You got something out of it so that's what counts.

How long did it take to get evaluated? Mine's been stuck at "Evaluation in Progress" for hours.

markulous

Yay! Tech writing came back good. Going to try to finish capstone tomorrow.