Advice Needed About Where To Obtain a Degree

tfisher

I am new to TechExams and I am really glad I found this site. I am currently looking at A few schools that I may possible attend to get my IT education rolling. I do not currently have a degree or any certs but I know enough to know that I wanna learn more. I have narrowed my school search down to three. All three offer online classes.
U.o.P which offers a Assocites in IT. Their course description sounds like a good fit but I am afraid that it is only there name that attracts me. I am not sure if I will actually learn what I need to.
NOVA which is my local community college offers a Associates also in IT through online casses.
Then there is WGU which sounds really good to me because it offers a bachelors and all the certs which is what I what to go with my degree.
Can anyone offer any advice as to which may be a good fit for someone just starting off. I really want to learn the material.So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

NetworkingStudent

tfisher wrote: »

I am new to TechExams and I am really glad I found this site. I am currently looking at A few schools that I may possible attend to get my IT education rolling. I do not currently have a degree or any certs but I know enough to know that I wanna learn more. I have narrowed my school search down to three. All three offer online classes.
U.o.P which offers a Assocites in IT. Their course description sounds like a good fit but I am afraid that it is only there name that attracts me. I am not sure if I will actually learn what I need to.
NOVA which is my local community college offers a Associates also in IT through online casses.
Then there is WGU which sounds really good to me because it offers a bachelors and all the certs which is what I what to go with my degree.
Can anyone offer any advice as to which may be a good fit for someone just starting off. I really want to learn the material.So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure the school is regionally accredited, if you don't it will be hard to transfer credits.

erpadmin

Tfisher, welcome to TE.

You really can't go wrong with WGU. Your application fee becomes $0 when one of us refers you to them, as opposed to your other choices.

At ~ $3000 per six month term, you can't really beat that price. Best of all it is regionally accredited. The amount of time you spend obtaining a AS, or even an AAS can potentially be spent obtaining a real, bonafide BS. Also, many people have gone on to "real" B&M schools. In fact, I was talking to someone who was admitted to a "real" B&M MBA program with a WGU BS.

You can't go wrong with WGU and I wish you the best of luck with whatever you choose.

bigmantenor

erpadmin wrote: »

Tfisher, welcome to TE.

You really can't go wrong with WGU. Your application fee becomes $0 when one of us refers you to them, as opposed to your other choices.

At ~ $3000 per six month term, you can't really beat that price. Best of all it is regionally accredited. The amount of time you spend obtaining a AS, or even an AAS can potentially be spent obtaining a real, bonafide BS. Also, many people have gone on to "real" B&M schools. In fact, I was talking to someone who was admitted to a "real" B&M MBA program with a WGU BS.

You can't go wrong with WGU and I wish you the best of luck with whatever you choose.

This is good advice. I have not been myself yet, but I have read post after post on here about WGU, and the general consensus is overwhelmingly positive. I will most likely be attending soon as well (either for their Bachelor's in Information Security, or their Master's in Information Assurance). Good luck to you!

spicy ahi

As an alumnus of University of Phoenix, understand that I cannot recommend them. It has nothing to do with the quality of education, however. It has to do more with the insane amount they are charging per credit. There is a local school in Hawaii, HPU, that I typically recommend to folks here as their tuition for the online Computer Science track (amongst other offerings) is not much more than the tuition for the local public university. Their in-class tuition actually ends up being cheaper than the U. of Hawaii as well. Only hitch is that they advertise their online offering as only for military (they call it the military campus) but my wife attends it and says there are more spouses/dependents and even non-military folks in her class than military members so I'm not exactly sure if it's a strict military only policy or not. Phoenix, however, is charging something like $500 PER CREDIT for online courses! Their land campus isn't much cheaper either so I think you'd be better served doing your homework into other offerings, especially for smaller colleges in your state that may have online degrees with competitive tuition rates to those of your public university. There are also many nationally known online universities so I don't envy your search.

I don't know anyone personally who has gone to WGU so I can't offer any personal thoughts, but I do know that it is a popular choice on TE and am sure you will get enough feedback here. In my neck of the woods, the usual suspects for national universities are AMU, and CTU, while I usually recommend HPU for folks here.

I'm actually going in a slightly different direction. I'm looking at returning to school to complete a Bachelors in EE, and I'm probably going to take a class or two at my local CC or University but am looking at UND's EE online degree track. Mostly because I work in the DoD and getting a government IT job is highly competitive. Engineering jobs (at least where I am) aren't so competitive as Engineers with clearances are harder to find.

YuckTheFankees

I would recommend WGU. Its been a great experience, and Ive learned more from this program than any other state university. Im looking forward to their masters degree in Information Assurance.

Armymanis

If you plan on going to a 4 year university, go to your local community college. That way you can transfer credits.

tfisher

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. I feel like this is one of the hardest decisions to make. I don't want to just pass test , that I can do . I want to know the stuff. WGU sounds promising but I have some time to do some more research. I know I am definitely leaning toward a non-profit school. Is there anything I should be comparing these school's with other than tuition and accreditation?

erpadmin

tfisher wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. I feel like this is one of the hardest decisions to make. I don't want to just pass test , that I can do . I want to know the stuff. WGU sounds promising but I have some time to do some more research. I know I am definitely leaning toward a non-profit school. Is there anything I should be comparing these school's with other than tuition and accreditation?

I can attest that you can "learn stuff" at WGU. Math is my weakest subject and there was no way I could have passed my math requirements without doing the work. I would have failed with no questions asked if I tried. Stuff that was putting me to sleep in high school was learned in a matter of weeks. I passed both my math requirements with ease.

Whatever you feel you are weak on, you are given a detailed course of study that will get you through the course. WGU is not easy and it is geared toward folks who are self-determined to succeed; which is why many of us TEers have gravitated to WGU.

Of course, if you feel you will benefit more from a traditional route, you can always enroll in a community college to get an AS and then go to a university afterward. Of course if you're doing this part time, that can take a long time. WGU at least will give you a shot to finish in 2-4 years, depending on how quickly you can go through your course of studies.

Personally, I wanted to do just do my BS as quickly as possible so I can do a more traditional program to earn my Masters. I already knew a lot of the material at WGU and I can write papers well enough. I'm already looking at graduate schools and I'm hoping I can choose one I'll be happy with. But definitely do your due diligence and research your options. Only you know what you need and how to get there. We can only advise.

Best of luck!