WGU Progress Thread - Free for All

So I figured I would open up a WGU progress thread ( another one, I know right?) for those of you who would prefer not to have the visibility or expectation of having an individual one. I'll get the ball rolling.

Major: BS: Network Administration
Transferred: all prerequisites , Net+ and Sec+ (54 CUs)
Completed: 30 CUs
Remaining: 32 CUs

Term 1 : May 1st 2015 - October 31st 2015
##############################
C393 IT Foundations - Completed 5/23
C394 IT Applications - Completed 5/23
C173 Scripting and Programming- Foundations - Completed 6/23
C169 Scripting and Programming- Applications - Completed 8/18
C175 Data Management- Foundations - Completed 9/02
C179 Business of IT - Applications - Completed 9/21
C170 Data Management- Applications - Completed 9/25
C176 Business of IT - Project Management - Completed 10/24

Term 2 : November 1st 2015 - April 31st 2016
##############################
C435 - Technical Writing - Competed 11/09
C436 - IT Capstone Written Project - Completed 11/24
C697 - Operating Systems I - Completed 12/19
C698 - Operating Systems II - Completed 12/19
ABV1 - Operating Systems
C185 - Network Policies and Services Management
C186 - Server Administration
C187 - Network Reliability and Fault Tolerance - waived with 409

I will be out of town from December 25th through January 4 So I went ahead and scheduled both Linux+ ( Operating Systems I and II) for this Saturday. I haven't had much time in the coursework so we will see how it goes.
Hoping to clear the Linux+ tests as that means no more having to leave home for any of the remaining tests (plus free second shots on all the remaining tests).

While looking at the Microsoft site I realized that I will be able to get the MCSA 2012R2 after taking C185 ( Microsoft 410) and C186 ( Microsoft 411) due to Microsoft's substitution rules which allow you to use Microsoft 409 (which you could take free last year) to substitute for Microsoft 412 (C187) which would effectively give me the MCSA after taking C185 and C186 and giving me a requirements met for C187.

I will probably take my time through the remaining Microsoft courses as I won't be starting my Masters until January 2017 so I can pay off my credit card and car. I have paid for the VCP6-DV voucher which I will hit in May and am still thinking about possibly going for the CCNA in November/December.

If anyone has any questions about any of the courses , etc. feel free to post in here or if anybody else also wants to combine/ track their progress here feel free to do so.

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Comments

EngRob

Congrats on your progress! I've been going at a slower pace, however it's about the best I could do with life events going on

Major: BS: IT Security
Transferred: (16 CUs)
Completed: 98 CUs
Remaining: 23 CUs

Transferred:
WFV1 IT Fundamentals I
DEV1 Security Fundamentals
CRV1 Networks
DHV1 Windows OS Fundamentals
EUC1 Web Development Fundamentals
EUP1 Project in Web Development Fundamentals

Term 1 : November 1st 2013 - April 30th 2014
##############################
TBP1 English Composition I
EBV1 IT Fundamentals III
EAV1 IT Fundamentals II
CLC1 Reasoning and Problem Solving
CTV1 Security

Term 2 : May 1st 2014 - October 31st 2014
##############################
C246 Fundamentals of Interconnecting Network Devices
C247 Interconnecting Network Devices

Term 3 : November 1st 2014 - April 30st 2015
##############################
C220 Operating Systems I
C221 Operating Systems II
BVC1 Geography
IWC1 Literature, Arts and the Humanities
TCP1 English Composition II
CUV1 Web Technologies

Term 4 : May 1st 2015 - October 31st 2015
##############################
C299 Designing Customized Security
C170 Data Management - Applications
IWT1 Literature, Arts and the Humanities: Analysis and Interpretation
MGC1 Principles of Management
SBT1 Technical Writing

Term 5 : November 1st 2015 - April 30th 2016
##############################
AGC1 Foundations of College Mathematics
BNC1 Organizational Behavior and Leadership
C132 Elements of Effective Communication

To Complete (aiming for this Term)
C164 Introduction to Physics
C278 College Algebra
CJC1 Introduction to Probability and Statistics
INC1 Integrated Natural Science
RGT1 IT - Security Capstone Written Project
DJV1 Software Development Fundamentals - Should change to new python course

fjhesq

@plopbangcrash

C173 Scripting and Programming- Foundations - Completed 6/23
C169 Scripting and Programming- Applications - Completed 8/18
C175 Data Management- Foundations - Completed 9/02
C170 Data Management- Applications - Completed 9/25

Man, amazed at how you were able to knock these out...and with your progress. Any suggestions, notes, or advice to assist with the above classes you've already taken? I'm dreading these for my next term. I'm at 91 CU's completed and these 4 are appearing to be the worst courses based off of what I've been reading.

fuz1on

Major: BS: IT Security
Transferred: All General Education and Project+, Linux+, A+, Network+, Security+, C/C++ Programming, Visual Basic Programming, SQL Fundamentals (77 CUs)
Completed: 81 CUs
Remaining: 43 CUs

Term 1 : 11/15-4/16
##############################
Intro to IT (Completed)
All other courses

I had to finish up some other certs I bought a year ago or so but now I'm going hardcore on Cisco stuff and plan on taking CCENT/CCNA in the next couple of weeks.

plopbangcrash

@fjhesq

The programming classes are more nerve wracking than difficult.
For C173 I was sure I was going to fail this class and ended up way over studying. The videos in my opinion were horrible and constantly would have "quizzes" with syntax and methods they had never discussed prior to the quiz. I ended up using codeacademy's coursework primarily. If I remember correctly the test I had took was primarily terminology and code light (less is the logic broken and more did you use the right syntax for the specific method or what will the loop output) it seems some people also get tripped up with UML in this class on the tests.
For C169 I was nervous going in and drug my feet significantly going through it. I started doing the application before finishing any of the coursework... don't do this as it will drag the class out forever. The course mentors have several cohorts that will give you excellent almost criminally good example code to assist with your application. Also if you use netbeans as your ide it will automatically create your setters and getters which saves some time. The test in this class was similar in context to C173.
C175 I thought was more difficult than C170. My tests in the class was primarily terminology with very light code in C175 . Primarily terminology on the test. It seems a lot of people get wrapped around the wheel on normalization forms, one to many , many to one, etc. I felt Google did a better job describing 3nf than the course work.
C170 I thought this was vastly easier than C175. Very simple SQL commands that most people are familiar with or are easy to adapt to . Can be covered by pretty much any sql\MySQL **** sheets online. Some terminology on the test, most of the code on the test was light (things like select * from mktable where sid = 1 ; " is the following code valid, what will it return?) The application was easy, I just looked a few online references for ones I wasn't familiar with and snipped the results. If you get any kick back from the other tasks look for the textbook examples to model as they graders tend to disagree with most of the world when it comes to things such as one to
Mainly I would say to look for cohorts and read the chatter. As a side note, most course mentors are very good at pointing you in the right direction in regards to prepping for the assessments as well as the tasks for taskstream.

plopbangcrash

Operating Systems I and II completed this morning.This is officially the end of the Comptia courses and having to drive to a testing center, all of the rest of my courses are Microsoft/Prometric and can be proctored. I may try to squeeze in another class/test before January 12th so I can take advantage of the second shot offer from Microsoft.

usman4673

Wow! Great pace. Very inspirational.

Needed to ask you about (C179) Business of IT - Applications. WGU has recommends MIS e-text and Pearson CourseConnect. What do you recommend? Do I need to read both or is one more useful to pass the test than the other? Any notes/tips?

Lastly, have you taken Critical Thinking & Logic (C16

yet? Or you had that transferred in? I read WGU is updating it this Jan the 4th and then it will only have "Obj assessments," no performance assessment anymore.

plopbangcrash

@usman

Critical Thinking & logic is not in the Network Administration path so I am unfamiliar.

I believe both texts were used for question generation on C179 .

usman4673

Thanks a lot for the reply.

Dakinggamer87

Keep up the great work everyone!!

plopbangcrash

As a side note I will most likely be dropping my course load and leaving WGU early in February. I wish everyone else good luck in completing their degree plan. I will most likely pick back up on my employers dime at the local university.

plopbangcrash

As a follow up to the above post, it looks like I will still finish out the degree but will most likely be tied up in some form of arbitration with WGU after graduation. 10 CUs left.

plopbangcrash

On January 26th I transferred my degree plan from BS:IT-Networking Administration to BS:IT . Tomorrow may very well be my last day at WGU, I have scheduled my last 2 cert tests Saturday morning. Undecided as to whether I will be returning for a Masters through here or elsewhere, on one hand they will have a new Cybersecurity Masters but I don't have a high level of confidence in the stability of the WGU's programs considering the pace they have set so far this year.

BS:IT (started 1\26\16)
10 CUs remaining
############
C484-Organizational Leadership and Behavior (Completed January 26th)
C483-Principles of Management (Completed January 26th)
C298-Web Programming
C479-Web Technologies

fuz1on

Great job!

cloudyknight

usman4673 wrote: »

Wow! Great pace. Very inspirational.

Needed to ask you about (C179) Business of IT - Applications. WGU has recommends MIS e-text and Pearson CourseConnect. What do you recommend? Do I need to read both or is one more useful to pass the test than the other? Any notes/tips?

Lastly, have you taken Critical Thinking & Logic (C16 yet? Or you had that transferred in? I read WGU is updating it this Jan the 4th and then it will only have "Obj assessments," no performance assessment anymore.

You'll want to use both those books. They're not that long. What I couldn't stand was the SkillSoft. I skipped it. This class was a good idea but poorly executed IMO. I pointed out many errors in the practice quizzes to the course mentors. I hope they've made corrections since I went through it.

bermovick

I keep hearing about the new Masters, but haven't been able to find any information on it. Care to share a link?

plopbangcrash

MS Cybersecurity and Information Assurance Areas of Study
MS Cybersecurity & Info Assurance Courses

I believe it is still baking and getting vetted. It looks to be pretty much the same as the MS:ISA with 2-3 course difference however the above links I believe are the work in progress links so they may be pulling in other courses ( or certs ).

plopbangcrash

As an aside I finished the BS:IT this weekend. I assume I will get my graduation application sometime this week and get the excess tuition reimbursed. I plan to finish up 410 and 411 sometime between now and June and possibly take a stab at CCENT/CCNA around October-ish although I am not sure as I have no current need for it and don't see it coming into play in the 3 years before it expires at my current job. Then Next January back to school somewhere for the Masters
BS:IT (started 1\26\16)
Completed January 30th
############
C484-Organizational Leadership and Behavior (Completed January 26th)
C483-Principles of Management (Completed January 26th)
C298-Web Programming (Completed January 30)
C479-Web Technologies (Completed January 30)

NicWhite

Congratulations! @plopbangcrash

cyberguypr

Oh crap! There goes the Cybersecurity bandwagon. It was fun while it lasted.

usman4673

plopbangcrash wrote: »

As an aside I finished the BS:IT this weekend. I assume I will get my graduation application sometime this week and get the excess tuition reimbursed. I

Congrats! Wish you all the best. One quick question: You mentioned "get excess tuition reimbursed," what does that mean? I am trying to understand how does one gets the tuition reimbursed.

plopbangcrash

Since WGU is not tied to a semester you most likely will complete prior to the end of your 6 month semester length so if you graduate 3 months in they owe a refund on the remainder of tuition cost. In my instance I chose the payment plan which is 4 $700ish payments debit the first 4/6 months of the semester. Since tuition is roughly $3000 or equivalent to about $500 a month I have paid in roughly $2100 but graduated at roughly $1500 so they owe $600-ish in return or if I had paid in full roughly $1500.

gespenstern

Okay, they recently introduced a revamp of their site and now I can't use it from work. I can sign-in but when I try to open any course I'm presented with

"Study Plan has failed to load. Please try logging out and back in to the Student Portal."

Error message. Also some other things do not work, like, it says that it can't load my mentor information, lol.

I noticed that URL contains this phrase: "wgu-student-v3" while in before (last week) URLs had "wgu-student-v2" string.

I've tried all browsers I have (FF, IE11, Chrome), same effect. Probably it has something to do with our firewall (but how, Holmes? Majority of connections are TLS and it's not broken as proper cert chain is used). I'll be brief: IT SUCKS.

usman4673

plopbangcrash wrote: »

Since WGU is not tied to a semester you most likely will complete prior to the end of your 6 month semester length so if you graduate 3 months in they owe a refund on the remainder of tuition cost. In my instance I chose the payment plan which is 4 $700ish payments debit the first 4/6 months of the semester. Since tuition is roughly $3000 or equivalent to about $500 a month I have paid in roughly $2100 but graduated at roughly $1500 so they owe $600-ish in return or if I had paid in full roughly $1500.

I started mine on Dec the 1st and completed my last class (Capstone) yesterday. Based on your feedback, I decided to give Financial Services a call, since I finished all my 30 CUs within 2.2 months time. But they told me that "only a student who is not able to complete the 12CUs full-time requirement and wants to withdraw etc. and has still not met 60% of the term's time duration" is eligible. Since, I started off as a full-time and completed my all course-work earlier, I am still required to pay the entire term's fee.

So, any ideas/directions/guidance? It'd be nice to have $1500 back and spend that traveling/celebrating.

usman4673

So, you only get the refund if you started the term as a full-time (12Cus) but couldnt complete 12CU's and circumstances changed and had to withdraw or defer/freeze the term. Besides this, they will not refund.

plopbangcrash

After a long frustrating series of phone calls last night I retract my statement. Usman is correct and I was incorrect, an additional caveat is that they will never do a refund for the final semester even if the CUs are below 12 and 60% through the semester. I was passed bad information from a mentor as well as the initial person who signed me into WGU....

With the above caveats if you have anytime available at the end of the degree there is no point in not taking up to 3 of the masters courses if you plan on taking the Masters directly after getting the BS( to do so you have to go directly into the masters ,. no semester/term break after the finish of the BS term with the 3 added on). Would be interested in determining whether they can prevent you from taking the CHFI and CEH as 2 of the first 3 courses , I haven't seen anything yet that forces you to take the 3 courses in a specific order.

flashoverride

gespenstern wrote: »

Okay, they recently introduced a revamp of their site and now I can't use it from work. I can sign-in but when I try to open any course I'm presented with

"Study Plan has failed to load. Please try logging out and back in to the Student Portal."

Error message. Also some other things do not work, like, it says that it can't load my mentor information, lol.

I noticed that URL contains this phrase: "wgu-student-v3" while in before (last week) URLs had "wgu-student-v2" string.

I've tried all browsers I have (FF, IE11, Chrome), same effect. Probably it has something to do with our firewall (but how, Holmes? Majority of connections are TLS and it's not broken as proper cert chain is used). I'll be brief: IT SUCKS.

Yep, seeing the same thing here. Never had a problem with the site before, and now it's jacked. At first I thought it was just a 1 day implementation deal, but since I've had nothing but trouble this week I don't know what's going on. On top of that they threatened to drop me because I hadn't had a call in 16 days... Mentor was out one week and I missed the call the next. Mind you I'm 3 years in and 90% done with the coursework.

WGU is... special. Really special. At first I loved it but the last couple of terms have just sucked terribly. I got bumped into a new COS and ended up having to take an extra 15 CUs worth of classes.

bermovick

That's ridiculous! My mentor call is every 2 weeks, yet we missed one in January (holiday), and will miss the next one in February (holiday!), so I've been getting only one per month at this point. Not that I really need any more than that, and she's brought up changing them to monthly. And I'm still in my first term.

gespenstern

flashoverride wrote: »

Yep, seeing the same thing here. Never had a problem with the site before, and now it's jacked. At first I thought it was just a 1 day implementation deal, but since I've had nothing but trouble this week I don't know what's going on.

Yep it still goes on, at least yesterday's night I wasn't able to get to my courses. And all I need from WGU right now is to perform an SSO to ucertify portal which works just fine. But, alas, sometimes I close my browser, travel between devices or session expires -- and I have to get back to WGU which doesn't work 9 out 10.

plopbangcrash

flashoverride wrote: »

WGU is... special. Really special. At first I loved it but the last couple of terms have just sucked terribly. I got bumped into a new COS and ended up having to take an extra 15 CUs worth of classes.

You wouldn't happen to be in the Network Administration side would you? That is exactly why I changed to the regular IT no emphasis, I got sick of them changing mentors, removing 2 classes, adding 3 classes to replace the 2 classes, moving back to 2 classes , not being consistent on transfer requirements for courses. I got tired of their inconsistency messing up my progress, hard to hit a moving target.

usman4673

plopbangcrash wrote: »

You wouldn't happen to be in the Network Administration side would you? That is exactly why I changed to the regular IT no emphasis, I got sick of them changing mentors, removing 2 classes, adding 3 classes to replace the 2 classes, moving back to 2 classes , not being consistent on transfer requirements for courses. I got tired of their inconsistency messing up my progress, hard to hit a moving target.

I was under the impression that once a student signs up a degree plan, all your transfers, current, and future courses get locked. Isnt this the case? Whats the point of calling it a degree plan if it changes every day?

Anyway, when and why do they change? Anytime you start a new 6-month term or can they change an already completed course too?