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

chmorin

earweed wrote: »

So are Hyper-me and Veritas.
WGU isn't gonna make a lot of $$ off the TE students. Most of the TE people here are already disciplined self learners who will zoom through it.

This is what I plan on doing.

killuah72

When you get to the technical classes, do you need to pass the certification in order to pass the class?

chmorin

killuah72 wrote: »

When you get to the technical classes, do you need to pass the certification in order to pass the class?

The test for the some classes are the certification exam. So, yes.

earweed

killuah72 wrote: »

When you get to the technical classes, do you need to pass the certification in order to pass the class?

For all of your IT classes except the Capstone Project in the Bachelors Program the cert test is THE test for passing the class. I don't know as much about the Masters Program.

stangman

Took the exam today, 4th time, missed each other time by a question or two. Okay maybe 3 or 4. Used Darrill's book and Labsim. Only used LabSim for about less than a week, total of 11 hours into it. Used Boson practice questions. Scored an 850/900. Onto AFV1 (70-294) and hopefully AGV1 (70-297) before the term is over. After that switching to Security.

Devilsbane

stangman wrote: »

Took the exam today, 4th time, missed each other time by a question or two. Okay maybe 3 or 4. Used Darrill's book and Labsim. Only used LabSim for about less than a week, total of 11 hours into it. Used Boson practice questions. Scored an 850/900. Onto AFV1 (70-294) and hopefully AGV1 (70-297) before the term is over. After that switching to Security.

Congrats on the pass

stangman

Devilsbane wrote: »

Congrats on the pass

Thanks, load off my mind.

Devilsbane

stangman wrote: »

Thanks, load off my mind.

I'm starting this cert after I finish MCSA. I'm expecting it to take between a month to a month and a half. Do you think this is reasonable? Studying 6-7 days a week.

earweed

Devilsbane wrote: »

I'm starting this cert after I finish MCSA. I'm expecting it to take between a month to a month and a half. Do you think this is reasonable? Studying 6-7 days a week.

Sec+ shouldn't take that long. I'd recommend getting Darril Gibson's book and if you can afford it the labsim for Sec+. The labsim is video training and includes practice exams and is raelly good.

mikej412

earweed wrote: »

WGU isn't gonna make a lot of $$ off the TE students. Most of the TE people here are already disciplined self learners who will zoom through it.

Good thing they are a non-profit University

But WGU is a good match for the large quantity of self-motivated and dedicated people TE seems to attract, so the steady stream of new students should offset the speed they're zipping through the program

jtoast

earweed wrote: »

So are Hyper-me and Veritas.
WGU isn't gonna make a lot of $$ off the TE students. Most of the TE people here are already disciplined self learners who will zoom through it.

I started on May 1st and I'm in the "zooming" category also. I've passed 2 classes so far with the third cert exam scheduled for Monday. I should have my mandary 12 units finished by the end of this month.

My goal is 54 units and my degree this term but I suspect that might be a little too ambitious.

We shall see.

Thxlbx

Ugh. Can't seem to get my enrollment counselor to call me back. Hopefully he will call back today, I have already left him a couple of voice mails and emails. I am wanting to start on July 1st, so hopefully we can get the ball rolling soon!

Devilsbane

Thxlbx wrote: »

Ugh. Can't seem to get my enrollment counselor to call me back. Hopefully he will call back today, I have already left him a couple of voice mails and emails. I am wanting to start on July 1st, so hopefully we can get the ball rolling soon!

Kind of odd that the counselor is the reason you can't get the ball rolling...

Thxlbx

Devilsbane wrote: »

Kind of odd that the counselor is the reason you can't get the ball rolling...

I want to make sure my financial aid is all in order, I have some student loans from previous school that I used to be behind on but am now current, and they need to send a title IV letter to WGU. Not sure who at WGU the letter needs to be sent to and the sender wants to send it to a specific person, not just a generalized department. Typical hoops to jump through, and hopefully my counselor can point me in the right direction. I think if I don't here from him in the next half hour or so I will call out to WGU and see if there is some in the financial aid office who can help me out. I want to get the aid squared away so I can do the assessments and stuff on Sunday when I am off work.

earweed

Part of the problem is that the last 10 days of the month are the busiest for the EC's. Also WGU is just now switching to using gmail for all students. It's an improvement over what they've had but the whole comp system is in an uproar right now. You may want to resend that email as everything sent to wgu just prior to the change has not reached recipients yet.

jtoast

My experience with WGU is that phone calls fix things faster than emails. I would call them.

Thxlbx

jtoast wrote: »

My experience with WGU is that phone calls fix things faster than emails. I would call them.

I have been calling in addition to the email. My counselor's voice mail says he is only there till 1pm mountain time today, so if I don't here back from him by then I am going to talk to somebody else. Thanks for the tips!

jtoast

My wife had a similar problem when she enrolled...she requested and was assigned a new counselor who was much more responsive.

Thxlbx

Got in touch with my counselor and got the information I needed. I will take the assessments this weekend sometime, and I have a phone appointment with him at 3 pm on Tuesday. One step down, many more to go!

jtoast

Assessments are cake. Congrats on getting the ball moving again!

Thxlbx

Thanks! The enrollment counselor said the assessments were not hard, but to just be careful, take my time, and read the questions. He said most folks who fail were just in too much of a hurry, and if you fail, you have to wait six months to apply again. That would just really, really suck...so I will take them when I have some quiet time, take my time, and thoroughly read everything, so I should do alright.

earweed

There shouldn't be any problem. On the writing just make sure to use complete sentences and no abreviations.

Thxlbx

earweed wrote: »

There shouldn't be any problem. On the writing just make sure to use complete sentences and no abreviations.

Cool. Thanks for the tips! I plan on doing it in the evening after my kids go to bed. It will be quiet and I will be able to take my time and get everything right. Now I just have to get my financial aid in order so I can get a pell grant!

ajmatson

Well after much back and forth trying to get my voucher for my first exam I finally took and passed the CIW Foundations v5 exam this morning with an 82%. Now time to cram for my Network+ test in two weeks. I must say this is only my second proctored exam and first with WGU and the process was very easy. One down 19 classes to go.

earweed

Congrats

Thxlbx

ajmatson wrote: »

Well after much back and forth trying to get my voucher for my first exam I finally took and passed the CIW Foundations v5 exam this morning with an 82%. Now time to cram for my Network+ test in two weeks. I must say this is only my second proctored exam and first with WGU and the process was very easy. One down 19 classes to go.

Awesome. Congrats on passing!

earweed

For anyone having proiblems with loans through WGU financial aid right now here's an announcement from WGU
A software defect is currently preventing students from accepting unsubsidized loans via our Financial Aid self service facility. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to correct this issue. We currently expect to have it cleared up by the afternoon of Monday, 5/24/10. Please contact our Financial Aid team if this causes any serious problems for you. Thanks!

earweed

I've been having problems with some of my classes having really bad put together Coure of Study. This is something noobs out there should be following in order to learn the material. I can address noobs in this manner being one myself.
The COS for 70-640 was just sloppily put together, a bad cut and paste job. I got them to fix some of it. The COS for the 70-642 completely omits Chapter 8 (Configuring Windows Firewall and Network Access Protection) and I know those items are in the objectives.
Hopefully some of the more experienced out there can at least look at the COS's as they're taking the course and present solutions to the course mentor to fix these problems.
aaahhhh....rant over

themagicone

I gave up on the COS idea from the first class. Don't take it wrong, I still go through it. For my first few classes that used Taskstream (another hunk of junk), I read through the task info, rubics and just research myself. I was having such a hard time understanding the English classes until I realized that what they wanted on Taskstream was very different from what the COS was telling me. As long as I can pass the assessments and prove competency, that is all I'm concerned about.

earweed

I mainly use it to track my progress anymore. That's how I noticed the omission of a whole chapter. Also the learning resource tabs for the server 2k8 classes don't even list IT Academy and that's a really good resource. IT Academy is referenced in the COS to be used, though.
The 70-640 COS was all over the place, started with chap 9 or something and every chapter you would go around in circles due to the order they used. You had to reference all the earlier chapters to do exercises.
There I go again....rant over