My WGU BS-NOS Accountability

[theonlyski]

I start my first term today. It's been a long road to get here and I've been (mostly) looking forward to it and following the progression of JSD and thorne (though I don't think there's a snowballs chance in hell of me progressing as fast).

As of now, I have 61 CUs satisfied, 62 remaining thanks to some ALEKS, Straighterline and a few Cisco certifications.

Up first:
C455 - English Comp I (two assignments completed, going to send them to the CM to verify they meet the standard before submitting them)
C168 - Critical Thinking and Logic (pre-assessment passed so I have a little studying to do before I take the OA which will probably be Monday (when my SM will be able to approve the OA requests)
C165 - Integrated Physical Sciences (haven't opened this yet)
C268 - Spreadsheets (haven't opened this yet)

Here we go!

[jsd]

Looking forward to seeing your progress! Hope you enjoy the experience as much as I have.

[theonlyski]

Slow start (or at least it feels like it to me because I feel like I haven't been spending enough time on it).

Halfway done with C455 (English Comp I), two assignments passed, two to go. Will probably work on these over the week of Christmas since I can do them without internet access. My first paper went through pretty easily but the second didn't and looking back I see why. I ended up trashing it and starting over. My CM for this course has been awesome to work with and really has helped me get back into writing essays.

Passed my OA for C168 (Critical Thinking and Logic) this morning. My SM wanted me to get a better score on the Pre-Assessment which I'm sure helped me anyways so that was the reason for the delay taking this.

Debating on which to do next between spreadsheets and physical sciences. Both should be pretty short I hope.

[theonlyski]

C165 (Integrated Physical Sciences) in the books now as well. Took the PA this morning, did ok on it (passed), studied some stuff and took the OA an hour ago.

That leaves 2 essays for C455 and the Spreadsheets class left, only 5 1/2 months to do it if I want to keep on time progress! 

[theonlyski]

C268 (Spreadsheets) is done, guess I need to stop procrastinating on my two remaining papers for English Comp 1. Only 23 weeks left in my term, I should be able to make that happen.

53 CU's to go!

[theonlyski]

Three weeks since I started this track, I've just met the on-time progression requirement, meaning I have finished 4 courses (12 CUs)!

Here are my thoughts on the school and courses so far:

My interactions with my Student Mentor (I think they're being renamed to Program Mentors) have all been positive. We both have a military IT background and every call seems to flow smoothly. I have no issues with her at all.

I've only interacted with one course mentor and she's been awesome. I really was worried about the composition courses but she's really helped me get through them.

Courses finished so far:

C455 - English Comp 1: This requires 4 different types of essays, nothing super crazy but it's been a LONG time since I've left high school and with a few emails back and forth between the CM and myself, we got it all figured out. The first essay I submitted without interaction with her. My second I did the same but it got kicked back. She helped me figure out that that I was off track and made some recommendations to get back on it. I ended up completely ditching that essay and just writing another one that met the requirements easier. Since then I've given her my drafts and gotten feedback, with no essays being kicked back.

C168 - Critical Thinking and Logic: I took the pre-assessment and did alright on it (I passed), not as high as my SM would like so I studied a bit and re-took the pre-assessment with a higher score. I took the OA and passed with an Exemplary. This was my first completed course. There was some terminology that they want you to pay attention to, nothing too difficult.

C165 - Integrated Physical Sciences: I took the pre-assessment and did alright on it, my score was high enough to satisfy my SM and she approved the OA which I took the same day and scored a bit better on it. I would say someone who's taken chemistry and physics in any form even at a high school level should probably be fine on this. I took the OAs for this and C168 on the same day, a few hours apart and I don't think I had even activated the C165 course until after I passed C168.

C268 - Spreadsheets: This one was a little daunting for me at first, the tasks required me to use things in Excel I've never even heard of, but that's fine, Excel has some pretty awesome features and really, this ended up being fairly easy. The PA and OA are similar and you can do the PA as many times as you want. The coaching report won't show you exactly what they want but it will show you when you're using a formula that it doesn't like and link you to the chapter that covers the area. I worked on every single page until I got 100% then moved to the next and ran through it from blank to done a few times. The OA was fairly simple but my proctor screwed up a little, nothing major and I don't expect everyone to have the same problems.

Now I get to start accelerating!

[theonlyski]

I slowed down for the holiday break and really didn't do anything significant except work on my planned paper for Comp 2.

Today I went and took both A+ certification tests, back to back. Passed both by a decent margin, so C343 and C344 are done. Just realized that I only spent an hour and a half at the testing center, not too shabby!

C393 - IT Foundations
C394 - IT Applications

Honestly, I didn't do much prep work, I've had an A+ since the middle of 2002 and have been working in the IT industry since then, so the only prep I did was to take the practice exam in uCertify so that I could justify the request for the vouchers. I would NOT recommend someone without a bunch of experience just taking them cold, there's quite a bit of stuff that would hang someone up, so study!

Anyways, 8 more CUs so now I'm up to 81/123 towards the degree, just shy of 66% done.

Now, I gotta write some papers (boooooooo)

[theonlyski]

Enrolled in English Comp II and Natural Science Lab yesterday afternoon. Submitted the first task of the Comp II and the experiment report for the lab. Both passed first time go.

C683 - Natural Science Lab (2 CU) in the blue!

Now I have to write the Comp II argumentative research paper and submit it, should have that done in the next week or so.

83 CUs complete, 40 to go. Trucking along.

Here's what is still outstanding (in the green):
Course Requirement CU
C456 English Composition II 3
C175 Data Management - Foundations 3
C483 Principles of Management 4
C846 Business of IT - Applications 4
C851 Linux Foundations 3
C176 Business of IT - Project Management 4
C768 Technical Communication 3
C779 Web Development Foundations 3
C917 Network Design Foundations 4
C850 Emerging Technologies 2
C849 Cloud Foundations 3
C769 IT Capstone Written Project 4

[theonlyski]

C456 - English Composition II is in the blue! I'm not a big fan of writing but the assignments weren't terrible and my Course Mentor has been great to work with. She didn't do the work for me but she pointed me in the direction I should go and she hasn't said a single thing that I disagreed with. I had the same CM for both Comp I & II which apparently WGU likes to do for continuity.

Not sure what I'll do next yet, 11 courses remain of which three are courses which involve writing papers, six are certification tests and two are OAs.

I have my SM/PM call tomorrow, so I should have a plan by then.

[quigongene]

Do you have input as to what you take next? Or does WGU just assign it to you?