WGU vs. B&M uni for B.S. degree?

I am really up in the air about WGU or a B.S. at the U of Minnesota - Twin Cities.

PRO
WGU is MUCH cheaper
WGU actually has courses that i'd benfit from
WGU has loads of CERTS, big plus
WGU is all online
WGU could be done in less then 2 years

CON
credibility? HR toss my resume at first glance

Will HR people toss my resume, because I got my degree at a online institution? I know when I was helping hire an IT Manager at my old job, we tossed everyone with online degrees right away, didn't even look at hte rest of the information...so I am very hesitant!

quick background

1)5 years of network administration
2) 2 years associate completed at local community college
3) Accepted to U of M, but not sure if I can do it while working full time (loads of classes during the day, while I work).
4) endgame would be to work for the FBI/CIA/NSA/GOV. doing security/network administration

I am just not sure ...

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Comments

mikej412

Welcome to the TE forums Dave.

erpadmin wrote: »

Well done, sir, and you get rep for that.

The Division Manager and Company Owner sound like they deserve some too -- their response "nailed it."

But yeah, Dave earns some rep for sharing that with us here on TE.

erpadmin

mikej412 wrote: »

Welcome to the TE forums Dave.

The Division Manager and Company Owner sound like they deserve some too -- their response "nailed it."

Very true.

Psoasman

vivithemage wrote: »

CON
credibility? HR toss my resume at first glance

Will HR people toss my resume, because I got my degree at a online institution? I know when I was helping hire an IT Manager at my old job, we tossed everyone with online degrees right away, didn't even look at hte rest of the information...so I am very hesitant!

I feel that companies that are stuck in the old-school of B&M only are limiting themselves to qualified applicants. I agree that all online schools are different, some are just diploma mills, but WGU is obviously not.

Dave88LX

Thanks guys! Just came across this forum while doing some research on the path to "whatever it is my next step should be."

I see the WGU stuff all up there in the stickies, I will have to give them a look-into as well.

I figured that was some good information above that would be helpful to a lot of people, being that it came from the people who actually do the hiring/firing.

bluemc

I'm definitely going to take the WGU route. The B&M route is too time extensive and not worth the money. I like the idea of a masters at a B&M for the people that feel that WGU isn't sufficient for them.

BMO

WGU should be fine for any government job. HR people shouldn't shun it if they know anything about WGU, with a couple of exceptions...

I think the generalized IT degree program is a little weak. Since WGU is a competency based program it's like showing you're really good at the basics (jack of all trades master of none). Personally, I think it weakens every other IT degree from WGU and I could see employers being hesitant about this degree for individuals with nothing else to list on their resume.

Also, the software program has some weaknesses, like not teaching C++ and not going into enough depth into computer architecture ect. But that's why it's an IT degree and not a Computer Science degree. It's focus is more oriented towards application development and not so much software engineering. A friend of mine finished a CS degree with an MIS emphasis and he is now going back to a community college to learn calculus because he couldn't get a software engineering job without the math. So, it could affect trying to get into certain types of programming jobs.

With that said, I enrolled in the software program. I'm also using the courses at Udacity to augment WGU's program (it's free and teaches python as it's language of choice). I've accepted the weaknesses and will work around that on my own.

The two networking and security programs I think are excellent programs. I would go into the security program personally but I jacked up my back pretty bad in the Army and can't do technician type work any more. I think the security program would be your best bet for trying to get a government job. They eat that stuff up.

vivithemage

totally forgot about this thread! I am almost done (2 more semesters) with my BAS degree at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities!