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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Shecky

Taking my ORC1 exam at 3 p.m. today. Wish me luck!

veritas_libertas

Shecky wrote: »

Taking my ORC1 exam at 3 p.m. today. Wish me luck!

Good luck! I took that last week...

petedude

Excellent1 wrote: »

That's exactly what I'm doing right now. The most frustrating thing so far is doing the programming exercises without using an easier way of doing it (like using if/else statements to split a string instead of split or using an array to begin with).

Ah well, back to the fun.

Please don't tell me that's in the task-- I'm still working off the older version of the task in .jpg format, hoping I won't find there's some new obscure requirement I don't know about yet. I've been using split in the tasks, so I hope I don't get called on that. It was bad enough having to develop loops/clauses to parse data.

never2late

themagicone wrote: »

Alright... progress update on Tech Writing! I'd say I'm about 50% there! Should be done by this weekend! Who's buying the drinks?

I'm about 75% done with the first draft. Already at 18 pages and looks I might top 25-28 with the appendixes. Gantt chart? Really!

Same plans as ErpAdmin, finish draft this weekend, tidy up and trim some of the wording. Plan is to turn it in by Wednesday. It does seem there is a lot of repetition. I feel like a politician, saying the same thing 20 different ways.

Excellent1

petedude wrote: »

Please don't tell me that's in the task-- I'm still working off the older version of the task in .jpg format, hoping I won't find there's some new obscure requirement I don't know about yet. I've been using split in the tasks, so I hope I don't get called on that. It was bad enough having to develop loops/clauses to parse data.

I don't believe it's in the task. I'm just trying to complete the exercises outlined in the CoS to see if I can do them as I cover the material. There are several exercises that you have to use some extremely long and clumsy coding in order to do it the way they want it done (i.e., using only those concepts covered up to that point in the material).

It's all good, and I'm loving java, but it's definitely new territory for me. Can't wait to get into jdbc and start playing around with database connectivity. Heh, never thought I'd say that, but there it is.

whatthehell

erpadmin wrote: »

The only (IT) Masters I would recommend from WGU would be the MS in Information Security Assurance.

Personally, I'm answering that that second question (getting a BS from WGU and going to a B&M-AACSB school to get an MBA....that was always the plan from the word go.)

Thanks for the info and recommendation!

Shecky

PASSED ORC1! w00t! Onto MGC1, TPV1, BOV1 then Technical Writing and finally Capstone!!!

petedude

erpadmin wrote: »

What he said.....

Java is great because you need an OOL to develop front-ends/interfaces for SQL databases. A developer does all of that jazz, as opposed to a DBA (though a DBA will at least familiarize himself with the OOL code of choice).

Java is now, for better or worse, the common tongue of programming courses for many schools. It's not exactly a hidden notion-- the language is everywhere, solid development tools/documentation can be had for free and it's cross-platform (PCs, Macs, Linux. . .). It does a lot of interesting stuff, even if it does it in goofy ways sometimes (GUI development, anybody?).

The DB development stuff piques my interest a little bit, but I'm almost tired of Java given how much time I've spent on GTT1 so far.

hiddenknight821

petedude wrote: »

Java is now, for better or worse, the common tongue of programming courses for many schools. It's not exactly a hidden notion-- the language is everywhere, solid development tools/documentation can be had for free and it's cross-platform (PCs, Macs, Linux. . .). It does a lot of interesting stuff, even if it does it in goofy ways sometimes (GUI development, anybody?).

The DB development stuff piques my interest a little bit, but I'm almost tired of Java given how much time I've spent on GTT1 so far.

Before you go on praising Java, I have heard students complaining about Java at my previous school. Most of them prefer C++ over Java (even CS students admitted it), because it's mid-to-high level programming language that interact closely to the machine language, but is nowhere as close compare to assembly, of course. C++ is far better than Java because it has better memory management. So, you may want to dabble on C++ a little bit. I have experienced both languages. If you think Java is easy, wait until you try playing around with pointers and nodes in C++.

themagicone

I turned in my Tech paper today. Figured why not... I got 3 tries might as well see what they say. Came to 18 pages with cover page, contents and appendix. Trying to get done asap.

Excellent1

Excellent1 wrote: »

That's exactly what I'm doing right now. The most frustrating thing so far is doing the programming exercises without using an easier way of doing it (like using if/else statements to split a string instead of split or using an array to begin with).

Ah well, back to the fun.

Well, just found out that when you use the scanner class to allow user input that anything the user enters is automatically split into tokens when they use spaces. So, in the example above, I didn't need to use split or boolean comparisons with charAt to check for .isWhitespace or any of that nonsense. A simple 3 variable declaration following the prompt allowed the 3 numbers entered by the user with spaces between each number to initialize correctly. So much for doing it the long way. Too bad that little nugget wasn't explicitly stated anywhere in the coursebook.

Also, regarding C++, I intend to work on that soon. I'm enjoying java enough to look into some other languages to see how they work. Fun stuff.

erpadmin

themagicone wrote: »

I turned in my Tech paper today. Figured why not... I got 3 tries might as well see what they say. Came to 18 pages with cover page, contents and appendix. Trying to get done asap.

Someone wants that beer.......LOL.

18 pages you say?! Keep us posted!

erpadmin

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Before you go on praising Java, I have heard students complaining about Java at my previous school. Most of them prefer C++ over Java (even CS students admitted it), because it's mid-to-high level programming language that interact closely to the machine language, but is nowhere as close compare to assembly, of course. C++ is far better than Java because it has better memory management. So, you may want to dabble on C++ a little bit. I have experienced both languages. If you think Java is easy, wait until you try playing around with pointers and nodes in C++.

Excellent1 wrote: »

Well, just found out that when you use the scanner class to allow user input that anything the user enters is automatically split into tokens when they use spaces. So, in the example above, I didn't need to use split or boolean comparisons with charAt to check for .isWhitespace or any of that nonsense. A simple 3 variable declaration following the prompt allowed the 3 numbers entered by the user with spaces between each number to initialize correctly. So much for doing it the long way. Too bad that little nugget wasn't explicitly stated anywhere in the coursebook.

Also, regarding C++, I intend to work on that soon. I'm enjoying java enough to look into some other languages to see how they work. Fun stuff.

It may behoove the both of you to know that I work with two developers who knew nothing of PeopleCode before they came to work at my shop (that's PeopleSoft's Native OOL...if you know C++ or Java, PeopleCode is stupid easy...). It is much easier to find a job doing development work than it is doing help desk; that much I know. I don't personally enjoy coding though. Scripting, yes, but not coding. Application development just isn't my thing. However, that's where the money is...a junior developer in the NYC area can make $45k-$65k. They tend to work for a couple of years and typically double that salary.

Just FYI, FWIW.

themagicone

GTT1 can be done in a week. I mostly forgo the COS and just plunged into the tasks. Google will be your friend. Get the 2 java books, java for everyone and big java. Any specific questions PM me and I'll point you in the right direction.

petedude

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Before you go on praising Java, I have heard students complaining about Java at my previous school. Most of them prefer C++ over Java (even CS students admitted it), because it's mid-to-high level programming language that interact closely to the machine language, but is nowhere as close compare to assembly, of course. C++ is far better than Java because it has better memory management. So, you may want to dabble on C++ a little bit. I have experienced both languages. If you think Java is easy, wait until you try playing around with pointers and nodes in C++.

No praise here for Java. It does lots of nifty stuff, but also (as others have pointed out) forces you to jump through hoops you don't have to jump through in other languages. Not to mention a couple other issues:

1. Write once, test many (allegedly multi-platform, but known to have differences);
2. Lack of interpreter stability-- I've seen more Java meltdowns in my day than I care to admit.

I think some of those issues stem from the fact that Java has been largely a proprietary, closed solution developed in a vacuum as opposed to a language developed by academia or outside a regular corporate environment.

If you want me to praise a language, think Perl. I realize it's not a general purpose language for client applications, but you can do things in a few lines of Perl that would take gobs of lines in Java.

hiddenknight821

petedude wrote: »

If you want me to praise a language, think Perl. I realize it's not a general purpose language for client applications, but you can do things in a few lines of Perl that would take gobs of lines in Java.

I'm gonna praise the Perl with you!

Althought, I'm not familiar with it yet (I dunno why), but I plan to get that stuff down in the near future once I do my Linux+ study. I plan to master Perl, sed, and AWK once I began working on it. I was suppose to take a Perl class, but I left my old school a quarter right before I was due to take the course. This makes me mad

, but as long as I am still living, I still have the opportunity to learn later on my own free time.

never2late

themagicone wrote: »

I turned in my Tech paper today. Figured why not... I got 3 tries might as well see what they say. Came to 18 pages with cover page, contents and appendix. Trying to get done asap.

Good work, hope you pass on the first try. It may be down to erp and myself for the honor of buying privileges.

demonfurbie

yea im gonna be cutting it close if i wanna walk in feb

hiddenknight821

demonfurbie wrote: »

yea im gonna be cutting it close if i wanna walk in feb

Ugh, the more I hear you guys talking about graduating soon, the more I anticipate graduating by the end of the year. I'm officially jealous.

I definitely need to email my mentor and ask when is the latest possible date I can finish all of my course works for graduation in Atlanta. I really need to speed up through the ICND2.

demonfurbie

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Ugh, the more I hear you guys talking about graduating soon, the more I anticipate graduating by the end of the year. I'm officially jealous. I definitely need to email my mentor and ask when is the latest possible date I can finish all of my course works for graduation in Atlanta. I really need to speed up through the ICND2.

mine told me last day in january

ive thought about changing my degree to the basic it degree and getting my mcitp after

erpadmin

never2late wrote: »

Good work, hope you pass on the first try. It may be down to erp and myself for the honor of buying privileges.

How far along are you? I might have a whole paper done by Sunday. (slight maybe...)

erpadmin

demonfurbie wrote: »

mine told me last day in january

Mine too.

I have to have CPW3/TWA1 done by 1/15/2012 though....it's looking good right now....

demonfurbie

erpadmin wrote: »

Mine too.

I have to have CPW3/TWA1 done by 1/15/2012 though....it's looking good right now....

the mcitp classes are taking longer than i was expecting i was wanting to do one a month and capstone/tech in one month

themagicone

No word yet from TaskStream. I've heard they grade the tech paper in a few hours but it has been over 24. I didn't even get the originality report. My refresh button on my email is getting worn out.

pixelperson1

Hi, I was wondering if there are any WGU graduate students on this forum.

I already have a B.Sc. IT degree from Barry University (Miami Shores, FL) and I am looking for a regionally accredited MIS grad school.

If there are any WGU grad students I would like to hear about their experiances and thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

hiddenknight821

pixelperson1 wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if there are any WGU graduate students on this forum.

I already have a B.Sc. IT degree from Barry University (Miami Shores, FL) and I am looking for a regionally accredited MIS grad school.

If there are any WGU grad students I would like to hear about their experiances and thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

To be frank with you, we are getting tired of people asking the same questions. Mind you but if you can do a search, you will have found some answers to your questions. Here's the thread of one of the alumni who recently graduated from the Information Security and Assurance program. As for the MBA program, I would not search it for you, but good luck on your search.

Excellent1

themagicone wrote: »

No word yet from TaskStream. I've heard they grade the tech paper in a few hours but it has been over 24. I didn't even get the originality report. My refresh button on my email is getting worn out.

Once the cancel submission option disappears, you know the graders have picked it up. Until then, it hasn't been looked at. Not sure if that's common knowledge or not. I found out about it a couple months after starting.

phonetic.man

Hey all. It's been a while since I posted anything in here.

I passed ABV1 class today. Not too bad and I think I could have had it done a lot sooner if my mentor would have let me. He said that he wanted me to do every little task for this since it was my first semester and this was "the hardest class". Its all good now though because he said now that I have proven myself to him I wont be constrained or limited.

Best wishes to everyone else!

never2late

erpadmin wrote: »

How far along are you? I might have a whole paper done by Sunday. (slight maybe...)

I just finished the project timeline. I pasted the sample IT project timeline and changed the tasks to fit my project. Do I need to reference it in my paper? Wife is a 12+ year project manager and she said most timelines use similar format.

Still have the Competency Matrix, references, and a couple appendixes. I hope to finish those tomorrow and then review the paper Sunday\Monday. Don't think I can get it in by Sunday night though. But like themagicone says, you have three tries to get it right.

erpadmin

never2late wrote: »

I just finished the project timeline. I pasted the sample IT project timeline and changed the tasks to fit my project. Do I need to reference it in my paper? Wife is a 12+ year project manager and she said most timelines use similar format.

Still have the Competency Matrix, references, and a couple appendixes. I hope to finish those tomorrow and then review the paper Sunday\Monday. Don't think I can get it in by Sunday night though. But like themagicone says, you have three tries to get it right.

I received a sample paper that discusses data de-duplication. (Something I might have to personally look into as our data growth is taking a toll on our tape backups, but that's another headache for another time....)

He basically uses a simple gant chart with a task name, duration, start and end times for columns. (nothing fancy and I was grateful for that...I don't even need to use MS Project).

If you need the sample paper, PM me your email. His format is very straightforward and I am following that for my own paper. (My topic is completely different from data de-dupes...not even going to tie that in, though a backup mechanism probably should be mentioned....but I could just do D2T like I do in real life.)

I'm almost at goal and objectives in my paper. I don't think I'm gonna be done even with a BS draft to send to taskstream.

Just remember guys....the deal was to be done with TWA1, and Capstone, if my memory serves me right.....

Either way, it looks like tonight will be the night I burn the midnight oil.