Student Experiences at Western Governors University (WGU)

techfiend

A recruiter sent me a job listing last week for a vmware engineer position. It required 10+ year of experience but the only cert it mentioned was A+ as required and in bold to make it stand out. A+ carried a lot of weight for that position for some unknown reason.

TacoRocket

techfiend wrote: »

A recruiter sent me a job listing last week for a vmware engineer position. It required 10+ year of experience but the only cert it mentioned was A+ as required and in bold to make it stand out. A+ carried a lot of weight for that position for some unknown reason.

I would run away. I saw a posting for an IT Manager position where A+ required, network+ preferred.

No. Just no.

techfiend

I never applied, figured it was a faux opening.

SteveLord

Winzer wrote: »

Currently doing IT Applications after IT foundations and...

I'm astounded by how much stuff there is for the A+ cert. It's a shame it doesn't get much recognition past entry level help desk jobs.

A lot of it is theory or hardware specs that don't really mean a lot today. Then you have some "duh" customer support stuff there too. Even a Microsoft Architect wouldn't know the pin count on DDR1, DDR2 and DDR3 memory......so what.



I have to retake my A+ since mine was over 5 years old. What sucks is even though I was cleared....I can't sit the exam for another month unless I drive to a place 2 hours away. Lame!

So doing Finite Math in the mean time. And I did nasty on the per-assessment at 49%. Lots of stuff I have never learned or even heard of before. But at least the exam is only 20 questions.

SGIT

Well, let me check in here. I have applied, been waiting to pass my CCNA which I did this week, uploaded that info to them. Should be hearing back soon and starting February 1st.

gespenstern

Had to pass A+ exam. Looks like it is divided in two parts from what I can tell, looks like I passed the first one and it was an extremely frustrating experience for me. Managed to pass, but was really pissed. Like, who really cares how many pins does AM2 or whatever other CPU socket has? Who counted them really? BTX computer case? Never saw that in my whole life and yet I have to answer questions on that. Laser printer corona types and securing wireless by MAC filtering (LOL!). Just DUMB! Also I never worked as a PC tech or any kind of support so my knowledge isn't the best in some desktop related areas. Or, maybe, it is just too deep instead in other areas...

Overall, want to just get through this ASAP.

jb4479

I am hoping to start February 1 in the Business IT Management program. So far my enrollment counselor has been very helpful. I have everything taken care of except 1 transcript for my associate's degree which I may not be able to get (for-profit school, parent company of which is currently under federal investigation). I have over 100 credits without it anyway, a lot of which should transfer. Would it hold anything up if I can't get that one? WGU has received all of the others (3 schools plus military).

Hopefully, I can finish this by year end 2016.

TheReceiver

Hey guys its been a while!

I had run into some issues and had to delay a bit. Then when I got started my fiance found a way stateside then I had a month left to finish classes.

What I had found in my initial experiences are the following.

Intro to IT was a cake walk if your coming from an IT background. The only thing I had to review was the business strategies which I have never heard of in the area's I have worked. I got this course finished in a week.

Foundations of College Mathematics. I hated this class. beyond anything else I hated the format. The content was simple enough to figure out but holy hell! the way this course was implemented was so fragmented it was hard for me to focus. Load WGU student portal > load Math course > Load Section > Take section test > reload section > new window opens > which prompts another window > Finally at the content! Then you get to the book and its JPEG! When you maximize the window its only 60% of the screen lol. The way this course was set up is a joke. I purposely failed the "Skills check" exams and went straight to the book. passed in one week.

English II. If you have no intention of learning APA as a lifelong tool, then I would suggest skipping to the end of the course to look at the sample paper and/or copy the template they have in the chatter box. The most difficult portion was picking a topic and then going against course mentors with the topic I chose. Passed it with my first submission save for the paper which needed some tweaks.


Question for the seniors!

What did you guys pick with your technical writing and/or CapStone? I still have that in the horizon but I want to get some ground work laid out to cut down on time needed to invest into this course. Why are how-to's discouraged?

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of augmenting home networking on the cheap as a project but if its going to be shot down then I need to look elsewhere

Thanks guys!

Chairs

Hey all, first time poster. . . long time lurker. I'm on my last class for my B.S. Network Security (CCNAS) from WGU and I feel like I should share my experiences.

First off, I'm going to preface this by saying I really like the school, but I'm going to be honest here. If any current or past alumni get offended I'm sorry. I've just noticed that the students on the subreddit are very defensive of this school and I wanted to get this out in the open.

The good:

WGU has an excellent 'learning' model. They provide industry certifications that will most definitely help you get a job once you graduate the school. All of the tests are proctored, which was pretty much a requirement for me, and I feel that this adds to the legitimacy of the school. I have friends and coworkers that have worked through UMUC's bachelor and master degree programs with never studying for a test and literally google every answer. This, in my opinion, is unacceptable and further feeds the fire in terms of discrediting online universities. The price at WGU is unbeatable for the quality and amount of 'education' you can get in one term. The ability to literally receive free certification training and vouchers is amazing and should be taken advantage of whenever possible. Finally, the schedule and 'at your own pace learning' is the best I've ever received. They really cut out the BS of online schools. I previously went to CTU for ~60 credit hours and the amount of just crap you had to do on a daily basis was absolutely dumb. WGU doesn't make you respond to threads on the forums and create threads regarding a specific topic in order to try and force a conversation on a topic that no one really cares about. It's just study and test, which I like very much.

To hit on mentors. Like mostly everyone I have spoken with about WGU, I had issues with my enrollment mentor as well. I like to believe that it was mostly my fault as WGU is not an LOI school which makes it just a little more difficult to get the military to pay for it. I didn't give myself enough time to process everything I needed to do and between field exercises / random army BS my entry was delayed a few months. Eventually, my counselor just gave up on me and after I got everything in order I had to start the process with another counselor. I didn't care for that too much, but then again these guys seem very busy.

However, my student mentor has been awesome, but overworked. He seems genuinely interested in my progression (almost as if he's paid for it!) and it really motivates me whenever we talk. He's helped me get the resources I need, has communicated with the different departments of WGU on my behalf, and has sent emails to my course mentors for me whenever I can't for whatever reason. The dude is real chill as well and I feel like our communication is natural and not forced. However, he is clearly overworked. Sometimes we only have a few minutes to talk before he has to get to another student. The dude is packed with appointments.

The Bad:

This school WAY too easy. I've been challenged by 1 course throughout my 1.5 years here and that was easily solved by quizlet. I'm not an intelligent guy by any means and I'm sure this is the norm for most people. Every pre-assessment / assessment can essentially be found online which, in my opinion, discredits the institution. I see people bragging about 'I did 60 CU's in one term!' as if they actually learned something. There is no way that you can do that much schooling in 6 months and get much of anything out of it. To me, most of my time spent at this school felt like a 'check the box' rather than a higher institution of learning. The certifications are the saving grace for this school.

In short, WGU is a great school if you want it to be. If you dedicate the time to each of your classes and get the most out of them then I would rate it as a very good institution to study at. However, it is structured in a way that you can pump and **** as many courses as you want in a 6 month period and get a piece of paper saying you did it at the end. I feel like most people choose the second option. Hell, I won't lie, there was a term where I knocked out 27 CU's and I couldn't even tell you the names of the courses right now. Hell, I do remember physics though, since that **** took up 3 months of my time.

Chairs

TheReceiver wrote: »

Hey guys its been a while!

Question for the seniors!

What did you guys pick with your technical writing and/or CapStone? I still have that in the horizon but I want to get some ground work laid out to cut down on time needed to invest into this course. Why are how-to's discouraged?

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of augmenting home networking on the cheap as a project but if its going to be shot down then I need to look elsewhere

Thanks guys!

I chose to upgrade and existing network infrastructure. Every aspect of my capstone was fictitious as I had never done anything of the sort. The Tech writing took me a solid 3 days of writing / research and the capstone took me a week after my first submission was kicked back.

If you really want to get a head start then you should print the rubric and fully understand what you need to do for each section. This will be the most help. I had a 35 page paper kicked back because I didn't add a paragraph in a certain section. Little things will make you fail, not the content of your paper necessarily.

ratbuddy

Chairs wrote: »

I see people bragging about 'I did 60 CU's in one term!' as if they actually learned something. There is no way that you can do that much schooling in 6 months and get much of anything out of it.

While that may be true for you, it's absolutely not true for everyone.

Chairs

ratbuddy wrote: »

While that may be true for you, it's absolutely not true for everyone.

Continue believe that. You know as well as I know that you couldn't fit 2 years worth of a degree into 5-6 months and actually learn what you need to learn. I loved my time at WGU, but this is a glaring problem.

TLeTourneau

Chairs wrote: »

Continue believe that. You know as well as I know that you couldn't fit 2 years worth of a degree into 5-6 months and actually learn what you need to learn. I loved my time at WGU, but this is a glaring problem.

That's the beauty of the competency based model, it's based on what you KNOW not necessarily how much class time you put in. I went in with well over a decade of work experience and cleared several classes in my first term just by taking the exams, does that mean I did not know the material or that I was already competent and did not require further instruction? The classes I was not competent in required effort to learn and pass, seems to me the school worked as designed.

You can't directly compare a competency based university with a traditional university, apples and oranges.

techfiend

I think you have to consider study hours a week. In a traditional B&M you are likely putting in 30 or less hours for roughly 38 weeks a year. That's 1140 hours max. If you put in 50 hours a week at WGU for 52 weeks you've put in 2600 hours, well over 2 years at a B&M.

I personally averaged about 40 hours a week for 46 weeks = 1840 hours to go from an AAS to BS while having to take one general course. Seems about the amount of hours I would have spent at a B&M over 2 years.

I agree some of the courses are too easy but some like Java, SQL, CCNA, MCSA were more advanced than anything I took at B&M for the AAS. Granted they were interesting and most things seem easier when there's interest.

ratbuddy

Chairs wrote: »

Continue believe that. You know as well as I know that you couldn't fit 2 years worth of a degree into 5-6 months and actually learn what you need to learn. I loved my time at WGU, but this is a glaring problem.

There you go making projections again. Again, what's true for you is most certainly not true for everyone else.

SGIT

I also think one needs to evaluate that which we are comparing this to, brick and mortar universities or colleges. There most certainly is a lot of waste time there. I have said for years public school K-12 could be about a third of the time when you look at what they actually know when they graduate high school. Same thing with post-secondary. I often hear from people attending how much a waste of time it is sitting in the actual class for hours and I often see the fragmented lack of knowledge from graduates from the typical University. Sometimes the bigger more well known ones actually put out the worst students, some with over three hundred students in an auditorium or a teacher with such a heavy accent they can't understand them and have to go elsewhere to learn. WGU is the correct solution to a problem that has existed for a long time. Students can learn as much or more due to the competency based and self paced style.

Winzer

Chairs' post is making me considering quitting. I only just started my 2nd term and it would suck to just have dumped 6k into nothing, but...

I first enrolled because I was starting to dislike my job and figured I would suck it up for 2 years and find something better (with the help of a degree).
But since then with 2 partners we have started our own company and have several clients; I am already making more money, doing more of the fun stuff.

If things go well, the paper itself will be useless, and it was my sole reason for enrolling at first. If I am going to learn very little, and plan to stay my own employer, this is starting to feel like a waste of time and money.


I guess it would serve as a 'failsafe'; if we go belly up when our current contracts expire 3 years from now, at least I'll have a degree.

SGIT

Winzer wrote: »

Chairs' post is making me considering quitting. I only just started my 2nd term and it would suck to just have dumped 6k into nothing, but...
I first enrolled because I was starting to dislike my job and figured I would suck it up for 2 years and find something better (with the help of a degree).
But since then with 2 partners we have started our own company and have several clients; I am already making more money, doing more of the fun stuff.

If things go well, the paper itself will be useless, and it was my sole reason for enrolling at first. If I am going to learn very little, and plan to stay my own employer, this is starting to feel like a waste of time and money.
I guess it would serve as a 'failsafe'; if we go belly up when our current contracts expire 3 years from now, at least I'll have a degree.

Yeah, I'd say continue on for sure. Things don't last for ever. I'm finally getting my degree, the issue of no degree has come up several times in the past and there is just way too many jobs wanting a BS in something, anything, they just need it. It is almost a guarantee things will change and the degree issue will come up again in your life.
As far as learning something or not at WGU, do you mean you already could pass all the exam/certs? Like the all Comptia and Cisco ones? Seems to me NOT, so you most certainly will learn many things. If you could pass all the exam already then you would gain the degree while saving years at a traditional school. Seems like a win win for sure.

psheehan5

@Winzer, No offense to anyone but whether or not you continue with WGU or any endeavor, should not be based on what someone else says. You need to do what's right for you. If it fits into your schedule while starting a new business, AND you like the school, go for it. If not, so be it. I'm sure you met some naysayers when you went to start your business, but you did it anyway.

bumbeen

Winzer wrote: »

Chairs' post is making me considering quitting. I only just started my 2nd term and it would suck to just have dumped 6k into nothing, but...

I first enrolled because I was starting to dislike my job and figured I would suck it up for 2 years and find something better (with the help of a degree).
But since then with 2 partners we have started our own company and have several clients; I am already making more money, doing more of the fun stuff.

If things go well, the paper itself will be useless, and it was my sole reason for enrolling at first. If I am going to learn very little, and plan to stay my own employer, this is starting to feel like a waste of time and money.


I guess it would serve as a 'failsafe'; if we go belly up when our current contracts expire 3 years from now, at least I'll have a degree.

Hey buddy, you don't need a degree to find another job. But with two terms already, you're already 1/3rd of the way done! Remember you can't transfer credits out of WGU, so if you leave, everything you've done up to now is gone unless you go back to WGU... which I'm not sure if they do that. I think you can take some kind of break and not pay for that time you're on break.

Just from my perspective, I think you should reconsider the idea that you don't need the degree because you plan to stay at your current employer. I'm 31 years old and I have changed jobs about 9 times in my life already. Most people who change jobs around every 2 or 3 years make more money in the long run because then you're keeping up with actual rising salary levels. Promotions and raises that keep your pay in line are a pipe dream at most places.

JamesKurtovich

Those students who earn 40-60 CUs in one term are the rare exception and I honestly don't know how they get anything out of that except for a lot of cash saved.

I was worried about the quality of WGU's education until I started my first few classes. While the lack of quizzes and mandatory assignments make the course seem really casual, the material really does challenge you and you really do need to know this stuff to pass your OA. If I could complain about anything, it's the really low passing scores of the OAs. I find myself saying, "That was easy" a lot, though I do spend a lot of time on studying and I don't rush through my courses like other students.

My Student Mentor is overbooked and stressed out. He's working with over 100 students right now.

bpenn

I agree that some of the content was easy, but my current knowledge helped me circumvent any additional studying to pass those classes. They really should raise the assessment minimum passing scores a few points higher, at least. Principles of management was like a 52 or something and I made a 68 on the pre assessment...

stryder144

@bumbeen...why do you say that you can't transfer credits from WGU? My understanding is that since the institution is regionally accredited, you should be able to transfer those credits that meet the gaining institution's class requirements (such as English Composition 1 satisfying the requirements for a typical English 101 course).

SteveLord

Anyone have any recommendations for Finite Math C277? I bombed the pre assessment as I was lost on a lot of the content.

ratbuddy

The notes I left when I took this one a couple years ago:

me wrote:

Learn the truth table operator symbols, how to read a Venn diagram, order of operations, and the names of the number sets (real, imaginary, rational, etc) and you'll pass this.

It's really that simple, assuming the assessment is still just 20 questions. I mostly studied from the Wikipedia articles on those topics.

steelodon

Has anyone went to WGU for their graduate program? I wanted to know about experiences and benefits after completing the program. Thanks.

PCTechLinc

Steelodon,
I am currently wrapping up my Master's in IT Security with them. I have one regular "class" to finish, then do my Capstone Project. I knew for a fact that I wanted to take the Master's course after finishing my BS in Network Administration with them. I consider attaining my two EC-Council certifications (CEH and CHFI) the greatest part of the program so far. I plan on taking 6 months off educationally after I complete this program to renew some certifications in Microsoft and Cisco, then re-enrolling with them for the MBA in IT Management. There isn't much I could say badly about them; I've had great experiences with them. Just let me know if you have additional questions.

steelodon

PCTechLinc wrote: »

Steelodon,
I am currently wrapping up my Master's in IT Security with them. I have one regular "class" to finish, then do my Capstone Project. I knew for a fact that I wanted to take the Master's course after finishing my BS in Network Administration with them. I consider attaining my two EC-Council certifications (CEH and CHFI) the greatest part of the program so far. I plan on taking 6 months off educationally after I complete this program to renew some certifications in Microsoft and Cisco, then re-enrolling with them for the MBA in IT Management. There isn't much I could say badly about them; I've had great experiences with them. Just let me know if you have additional questions.

Definitely! I didn't know I could obtain both Masters degree from them. This has strengthened my consideration to attend again.

JamesKurtovich

I heard they recently changed up Critical Thinking and Logic. I just finished it in my last term and that sucker was frustrating.

earonw49

JamesKurtovich wrote: »

I heard they recently changed up Critical Thinking and Logic. I just finished it in my last term and that sucker was frustrating.

Indeed they changed it up. I went in the pre assessments and scored above 70%. I did a day of very light studying and passed the main assessment/exam with a 75%. This class is now officially a "gimme" for those who have above average common sense.