New Guy / WGU Student

Hello everyone,
A little background, I am new here and starting at WGU on March 1 going into IT Sec. I am transferring my AAS from the CCAF and my A+ which gets me 42 CU completed and 81 to go. With a full time job/life I won't be able to go as fast as some of you, but I will try and do it as quick as I can obviously. I work as a computer operator (but also help the engineers with networking/setting up software/hardware) and have worked tech support in the past, so I have a little IT experience, but obviously not too in depth.

Back to the Job/Degree side, I saw a post about ratbuddy's thread and his progress in which he stated that at WGU they will let you take the higher level courses and as long as you pass the class/cert, you can get a "requirement satisfied" for the lower level courses. At the same time, this means you would forego the MTA certs and just obtain the higher level ones. My question is would this be worth it? From what I can find, the MTA certs are not really valuable in the job market and on a resume. This would also allow me to potentially complete my degree faster which is better all the way around (better ROI for degree cost, get degree faster for a job, etc.) I asked my mentor about this and he confirmed that I can do this with the following classes:

Upper Level Course

Lower Level RS

Security +

Security Fundamentals

Network +

Network Fundamentals

Web Programming or Web Technologies

Web Development Fundamentals

Introduction to Programming or Object Oriented Design

Software Fundamentals

Database I

Database Fundamentals

Operating Systems

Windows OS Fundamentals

And from further research, it appears that it's fairly redundant between the tests so it doesn't make sense to spend the time studying a general overview and then having to go back and study again for a more in-depth understanding. While I have researched this a little bit and seem to have a general opinion on the matter, I would like some input from you guys. Would you other students/people in the IT field agree that this would be a better path to follow?

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Comments

TomkoTech

As soon as I get assigned a mentor I will be asking which classes satisfy lower level ones. Whether the certs are worth or not is irrelevant to me. For me the most important thing is finishing my degree. If afterwards I would like to get some miscellaneous certifications I have no qualms paying out of pocket or asking my company to pick up the tab. In theory you should have the knowledge and ability to pass them.

srabiee

I've never heard anything about being able to "skip" certain classes. In the ND&M degree, nothing like this was discussed or offered to me. Granted I transferred in 44 CUs, but completing courses by skipping over them is still completely new news to me.

I don't understand why WGU would allow something like this. If higher-level courses satisfy the requirements of lower-level courses, then why don't they get rid of the corresponding lower-level courses and save everybody the time and confusion?

I guess I'm looking at it from this standpoint: If I finished all of my lower-level classes and then later found out that I could have skipped over them from the beginning, I'd be pissed. lol

TomkoTech

There are quite a few posts in the various WGU threads on here that talk about it. I know from my research on the website there is nothing stated about being able to do it. So advertising it is probably not something they like to do. However if you have the skills of the lower level course already and can pass the upper level course it makes sense that they would allow you to do it. By demonstrating the knowledge of the upper level exam, the lower level exam is moot.

Having said that, if you needed to take your lower level classes to learn the material then you have no need/reason to be pissed. It served its purpose of segueing into the upper level.

As I said I haven't even been assigned a mentor yet as I have some paperwork Im waiting on from my VA counselor. But as soon as they do I am going to ask about this.

srabiee

TomkoTech wrote: »

Having said that, if you needed to take your lower level classes to learn the material then you have no need/reason to be pissed. It served its purpose of segueing into the upper level.

Yes that's definitely true. Good point.

Qord

I've heard of this before, there are a few people here who have mentioned it. However, a lot of us that have AS/AAS degrees have taken networking/security/web-dev classes that already took care of a few of the "fundamentals" classes so it's not discussed that much because it's a non-issue for so many.

Flat4ForLife wrote: »

Would you ... agree...

I would. Like you said, no reason to take them if you don't really need to. If they let you do it that way, why not do it?

CoolAsAFan

If it were me, I would definitely pass on the MTA's (for the reasons you had mentioned), and do the higher level courses. Saves you time, money, and gets you towards your goal of a degree much quicker. That being said, if you struggle with the first higher level course you take, perhaps it would be wise to do the lower levels for your next course(s).

Danielm7

In that list you have, only 3 of those courses are part of the security track. This change only happened a bit ago, up to a month or two ago my mentor didn't even know about it and I told him about it from reading forums so he went and investigated. I did it with 2 classes myself. It isn't a case of a total skip, you have to know the material for the higher level exam anyway, it mostly just saves time. For me, booking the MTA exams is a real hassle locally. I still reviewed the material for the lower level class to make sure I understood it enough to move forward.

markulous

Another reason I would grab a MTA is if I was in a situation where I just needed a cert to satisfy an HR requirement.

For instance, in my job, to get promoted to the next job title, I need to show the ability to do the work, but I need to have ANY cert to satisfy HR. Grabbing a quick MTA that requires minimal studying is a nice way to do that.

Flat4ForLife

srabiee wrote: »

I've never heard anything about being able to "skip" certain classes. In the ND&M degree, nothing like this was discussed or offered to me. Granted I transferred in 44 CUs, but completing courses by skipping over them is still completely new news to me.
I don't understand why WGU would allow something like this. If higher-level courses satisfy the requirements of lower-level courses, then why don't they get rid of the corresponding lower-level courses and save everybody the time and confusion?
I guess I'm looking at it from this standpoint: If I finished all of my lower-level classes and then later found out that I could have skipped over them from the beginning, I'd be pissed. lol

Like the other poster has mentioned, it supposedly fairly new to be able to do this. I would imagine they still keep the lower level courses for people who need to study something from a beginner standpoint, just so everything is all included in one degree program. That is why I wanted to start my degree off the best I can after hearing this, because if I was to go down the road and find out later, I would be upset too haha

CoolAsAFan wrote: »

If it were me, I would definitely pass on the MTA's (for the reasons you had mentioned), and do the higher level courses. Saves you time, money, and gets you towards your goal of a degree much quicker. That being said, if you struggle with the first higher level course you take, perhaps it would be wise to do the lower levels for your next course(s).

Good advice. I was planning on doing that anyway, seeing how my first one went and debate from there. Then again, every test is different material so its hard to say.

Danielm7 wrote: »

In that list you have, only 3 of those courses are part of the security track. This change only happened a bit ago, up to a month or two ago my mentor didn't even know about it and I told him about it from reading forums so he went and investigated. I did it with 2 classes myself. It isn't a case of a total skip, you have to know the material for the higher level exam anyway, it mostly just saves time. For me, booking the MTA exams is a real hassle locally. I still reviewed the material for the lower level class to make sure I understood it enough to move forward.

I can find 4 of them on the degree plan, but either way it would expedite your degree if you could do this. And yes, if you do know the lower level course stuff and can pass the higher one, then it is a total skip...you didn't have to take it. I will probably still go through the lower level courses like you mentioned, but I just figure why waste the time and hassle of doing the other tests if they become practically underrated in the end?

markulous wrote: »

Another reason I would grab a MTA is if I was in a situation where I just needed a cert to satisfy an HR requirement.
For instance, in my job, to get promoted to the next job title, I need to show the ability to do the work, but I need to have ANY cert to satisfy HR. Grabbing a quick MTA that requires minimal studying is a nice way to do that.

This is a good idea, and if I was in that situation I would probably do the same thing.

Thanks for all the input everyone, while its a bit harder for me to stray from my set courses (being on TA you have to pre approve them), I will do my best to see if I can get the other classes in first.