Does WGU get any respect with employers

Hey everyone,

I noticed all this love for the WGU school on this website and was wondering if employers give WGU respect. I know I heard that they don't respect Devry or ITT but that was years ago not sure how thats viewed these days. I am currently living close to Trenton, NJ. The school thats local and affordable to me is Thomas Edison State College which is also distance learning. Many employers I've came across would mention that they "know" someone thats going there and its no joke. I also heard Professors at a University mentioned that Thomas Edison State college is a good school. All this ranting and raving about Thomas Edison but never any mention about WGU when I talk about the school people people look at me like a deer in headlights.

I would prefer to go to WGU since the real accelerated method lets you test out which would leave me completing my degree in under 1 yr tops with an Associates in CS and an alphabet soup of certs. It seems like since I'm in jersey Thomas Edison State College is the distance learning thats "known" around these parts but would take me a full 2 years and then some to complete.

Thanks in advance for giving your input.

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networker050184

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The only opinion that maters is the person reading your resume.

DeathByMisadventure

What I've learned through WGU is that it has been a far and away better experience than my time at a "prestigious" state university. At the university, I had a professor of electrical engineering that really, truly, did not understand electronics, for example. Tenure's a *****.

DatabaseHead

It helped me out a lot. Prior to me obtaining my MBA from WGU I wasn't getting many hits to be honest. Sometimes I would get calls but for whatever reason I was floating around the 60,000 per year mark. Once I started listing the MBA on my resume I started getting more opportunities. Eventually after ~5 interviews I was over 60,000 for the first time. I don't believe in luck, the degree has helped out tremendously. Now when recruiters call (and believe me they know what the market will bear), they generally are excited I have my MBA and never mention where it's from. On occasion they won't make note of it but that's because they haven't gotten past the experience I have now.

I'm positioned for over 100,000 now and some of these folks on TE are already well over it. I think WGU is a great investment and worth the time and money.

In fact I was on a certification war path for the longest time but it never helped get me over the hump, it was the Masters.

HTH FWIW

Elegyx

Iristheangel wrote: »

@=lucky0977

Sounds like you've worked with some unethical kids but the reality is that there are always going to be folks that ****, ****, etc any certification or educational institution out there. Heck, there was even a Harvard cheating scandal on a take-home final exam that busted 125 students at once a couple years ago. Brick and mortar universities still have cheating problems, still have tests they administer from home, and most offer distance or online learning options and most of these degrees are going to be the same ones you would have earned in person so an employer wouldn't know the difference.

Like anything, your education is what you make of it. I learned a lot during my time at WGU because I put a lot into it and it's never hurt my career. I'm not going to say to not take an online course because people have cheated before. If that's the case, we all need to turn in our certifications and degrees immediately since I'm sure every credential each one of us holds has been dumped or cheated on by someone out there in the world.

That being said, it doesn't sound like your co-workers are going to WGU. You mentioned one is taking a computer science major which WGU doesn't offer that major so I'm going to assume that these easy classes and open-book exams are more in relation to the school that person is going to. Personally, my experience at WGU is that we had to either go into a testing center to take exams or do the exams remotely where we had to get on camera, show our surroundings before starting to show that there was no one in the room, anything one our desk, under our desk, etc, and screenshare to show that nothing else was showing on the desktop that could help us ****. Now I'm sure someone could still figure a way to **** but that happens in every testing center or school.

@OP -
If you're worried about a potential company you like discriminating against your degree, you could always do a linkedin search by big company and school. From what I see on Linkedin, it looks like Verizon, Microsoft, AT&T, Cisco, Apple, IBM, Google, NASA, etc have all hired WGU Alums. Here's some of the more fun ones:

NASA's CIO/CISO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chucklayton
Security Engineer at Google: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atcherniakhovski
Manager of Strategic Customer Engineering at Google and a founder of Firefly Consulting (that's awesome): https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlscottfranklin
Cybersecurity Architect at WWT: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naasief
Sr Manager of Security Solutions at Cisco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccmula
SVP at Bank of America: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianlemus
CIO at the Office of Command Surgeon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/skysharmaCIO for Naval Intelligence and Senior Executive for SCI Networks - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nmandersen
CIO for Banner Health: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansmithprofile
CIO at HCA: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cae-swanger-428951a

Good luck on your educational journey and wherever you end up going, I hope it works for you.

I had to get used to the whole "show your surroundings with the web cam" part for WGU. It's still a bit strange to me

tmtex

I didn't read all these but from my experience from applying to jobs its "Do you have a Bachelors YES or NO". Some specify it must be related to IT. More of a screening process. Also depends on the job

Danielm7

Elegyx wrote: »

I had to get used to the whole "show your surroundings with the web cam" part for WGU. It's still a bit strange to me

What is funny about all that is that I took a bunch of proctored webcam exams with WGU and was never told to show my surroundings. I don't even remember a single one communicating with me at all. I'm sure they were there, maybe I just got lucky because I know some people say they've had lots of demands from the screeners.

cyberguypr

Same here. Never had to show anything or interact with anyone.

PJ_Sneakers

I've had to show my surroundings on every single one. I've taken online proctored exams for WGU, EC-Council, and CompTIA. Each time I had to show my entire surroundings. This was with both Examity and ProctorU.

mindcrank

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

I've had to show my surroundings on every single one. I've taken online proctored exams for WGU, EC-Council, and CompTIA. Each time I had to show my entire surroundings. This was with both Examity and ProctorU.

^ Same here.

aspiringsoul

As a (soon-to-be) graduate of WGU, I highly recommend them. My boss is a graduate of the WGU MBA program, and we've interviewed other candidates who are attending WGU. As a matter of fact, I've been so happy with WGU, that I've decided to suffer through a second Masters program (the MS: IT Management program).

I'm also a graduate of (the recently bankrupt) ITT Tech.

For anyone who is considering enrolling at a For-Profit University, please re-consider it. It's not worth it.....and I can prove it to you.

For Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguardthe Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success:

http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/for_profit_report/Contents.pdf

Stealing America's FutureHow For-Profit Colleges Scam Taxpayers and Ruin Students' Lives:

https://www.republicreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/D-Halperin-Stealing-Americas-Future-ebook.pdf

Friends In High Places:Who Endorses America’s TroubledFor*Profit Colleges?:

https://www.republicreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Halperin-Friends-In-High-Places.pdf

I wish someone had shown me this information before I enrolled at ITT Tech.....but then again, I enrolled (and graduated) way before the investigations and fraud lawsuits which led to the bankruptcy of the company. The whole sector is full of bad apples though, and they offer a very poor return on investment, because they are more concerned about enriching their shareholders (and using their taxpayer guaranteed profits) to lobby politicians and fight debt-relief and consumer protection rules.

g33kgrrl

Firstly, I'd like to express my gratitude to others here who have taken the time to share their experiences, and help people like me make well-informed decisions about their educational paths.

I have an AS in Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology. However, because I didn't have a bachelor's degree, I didn't qualify for a position as an engineering technologist. And so began a 20+ year long patchwork of IT jobs/consulting/contracting work to make ends meet. (Yep, all that electronics and microprocessor background cast aside just to keep food on the table.) I started in computer repair, and progressed to sys/web/network admin and some web design/development. I never got any certifications, because (1) they were much more expensive than I could afford raising a family, and (2) anyone who gave me a chance to prove myself could easily see that I had the expertise and skills to get the job done. The trouble was, as a woman in IT with no certs, many companies and clients wouldn't give me that chance. The ones that did paid significantly less than industry standards, for the same reasons. So yes, I had enough work and money to get by, but never really enough to get ahead.

A few years ago, I realized I'd be much better off in full-time programming. It's less dependent on certs, and the job prospects are a whole better... as are the pay, benefits, hours, and general level of respect. Happily, I've experienced significantly less sexism, as well. I'm a lot better at programming than I ever gave myself credit for, and I love what I do even more than I did before. But now, once again, that lack of a bachelor's degree is proving to be an obstacle to my advancement.

I started investigating options for completing my degree at a local state college. As luck would have it, I'd just missed the application deadline for Fall 2017 (really, the deadline is December of the previous year?), and so I wouldn't be able to attend until January next year. I have no idea how well the classes will fit with my full-time work schedule, and their website doesn't make it easy to find out. It costs ~$8600/year, plus books and transpo. I'd have to drive 30+ minutes each way, fight to get a parking spot, and be a sore thumb sticking out in classrooms full of kids 10 years younger than my own son. Yuck on all fronts.

I then did some very extensive research on online schools. UoP and similar weren't an option, as I don't have a small fortune to pay for a degree from a school often considered to be sub-par. WGU was the only accredited non-profit university that seemed to (1) have a reputable program and (2) get respect from employers. I can do marathon sessions and hammer my classes on evenings and weekends, or even take a brief hiatus while I bang out an urgent project for a client at work. I can do it all from home for $6000/year including materials, and save gas money and countless hours of driving time. And I can start next month, not next year. WGU was the only choice that made sense.

I spoke with a friendly and very helpful enrollment counselor there, who is guiding me through the process and getting me all set up to start on May 1. Thanks to the feedback in this thread and elsewhere, I've assuaged my concerns and I'm satisfied that this is the right choice for me.

FYI for prospective students: You will be expected to (OK now, don't panic!) attend full-time - that is, the equivalent of at least 12 units/semester. But you take the classes serially, not in parallel... which means that instead of juggling work duties with 3 or 4 different classes in unrelated subjects, you're taking one class at a time so you can focus in on it and follow through to completion before starting the next. That seems a lot smarter, and much more doable for someone who must also work full-time. I imagine this helps students graduate faster as well, since I would never consider taking on 12 units/semester otherwise.

Lastly, if you'd like to try a free online CS class (to see if online classes and/or CS are for you), check out "CS50 - Introduction to Computer Science" on edX.org. It's a credit/no credit class offered by none other than Harvard University. It's the same class Harvard offers to their on-campus students for a letter grade. The professor is excellent, the projects are relevant, and he does a superb job teaching you important CS concepts while keeping things interesting. I firmly believe that that class was one of the factors that landed me my first full-time programming position.

Best of luck to all of you!