Purdue University Global - BA Information Technology [Review & Advice]

[LevelUP]

A quick rundown of my first PUG BS IT term at the midway point:

• Of the 44 1-credit modules I'm trying to complete this term (everything but the capstone), in the first five weeks I've finished 32 of them: 28 As, 1 B, 3 waiting on grading.
  
• On average, I'd estimate I'm spending between 3-6 hours on most of the modules, although some have been as quick as 45 minutes for me (IN250 M1 and M2), and one took north of 10 hours (I'm trying not to remember). Per class, that's around 20-30 hours. Keep in mind I have 10 years of IT experience and am a pretty quick writer, so my guess is these are low times compared to most.
  
• The major assignments seem to be the same between the module classes and the traditional classes. Since there are 10 weeks for the traditional classes but only 5 or 6 modules per class, that means most of the modules have two major assignments (although some have had three).
  
• I knew coming in there were lots of writing assignments, but I didn't know how many Powerpoint assignments there would be. Oof.
  
• There have been assignments where nothing in the assignment instructions matches the published rubric (IT402 M1, for example). Email quote from one of the professors: "I submitted several tickets about the inconsistency," but still not fixed. I'd say about half the modules have some sort of issue on this front, although most are minor. Not exactly a professional look, though.
  
• In the times I've interacted with professors (about half the classes), my general perception of them has been mixed, to say the least. Some have been kind and helpful. Some...have not. Probably par for the course at any school, though.
  
• If you're doing the IT Management concentration, and you're trying to complete this degree as quickly as possible (which is why you're here, right?), I strongly recommend against taking IN300 as one of the classes. I'm an experienced programmer, and it's slow tedious going for me -- much of it programming the same thing in three different languages. I don't know what to recommend instead, but it may end up as my most time-consuming course.
  

Anyway, happy that I'm ahead of my expected pace and should be able to finish in two terms without too much trouble, after which I'm going straight into my PUG IT Masters.

Great feedback. 

If I were to guess, I would say the easier non-technical courses to take for IT Management concentration would be:

IT104: Introduction to Cybersecurity
IN200: Data Governance - Policy and Ethics
IN302: Reporting and Visualization
IN406: Business Intelligence

https://catalog.purdueglobal.edu/undergr...ptions/it/

[walruspanda]

Update at the end of my first PUG IT term (well, a week and a half to go, but basically done for me). 39 credits/modules completed, which is everything except the capstone and IN254. IN254 is one of their new programming classes that I think I'm the first student to take, at least module-style, and my class has no professor, and my module 1 assignment has not been graded even though I submitted it in mid-July. It's a bit annoying. I've completed all the assignments in advance, and my advisor is aware of the issue, so it's not a huge problem as long as my one active module doesn't turn into an F or an I for being ungraded, and the rest of it gets resolved by beginning of next term.

Otherwise, my early comments all hold, both positive and negative.

[LevelUP]

Update at the end of my first PUG IT term (well, a week and a half to go, but basically done for me). 39 credits/modules completed, which is everything except the capstone and IN254. IN254 is one of their new programming classes that I think I'm the first student to take, at least module-style, and my class has no professor, and my module 1 assignment has not been graded even though I submitted it in mid-July. It's a bit annoying. I've completed all the assignments in advance, and my advisor is aware of the issue, so it's not a huge problem as long as my one active module doesn't turn into an F or an I for being ungraded, and the rest of it gets resolved by beginning of next term.

Otherwise, my early comments all hold, both positive and negative.

Given how tough the programming courses seem to be at PUG, I'll probably drop the suggestion to do a programming concentration in the degree plan. IT management seems to be the way to go. 

Next term should be easier now that you only have 2 courses left.

Keep us updated.

[walruspanda]

In full disclosure: Two hours after I posted about my issues with IN254 here, my Module 1 assignment was finally graded. So PUG did eventually solve the issue, albeit a couple weeks after it ought to have been resolved.

[9yeire]

Haven't checked into the forum for a while, glad to see that my PUG post was useful to someone!

[walruspanda]

Now that I'm officially in "pending graduation" status and have turned in my last major assignment, update at the end of my second (and final) PUG term for BS in IT:

• Capstone was annoyingly slow, especially when I zoomed through 7+ full courses the first term. Fairly time consuming as well, given the required discussion posts and seminars. But it wasn't excessively difficult -- I'd say at least two or three of my other classes were harder.
  
• Had three modules left besides the capstone, got those done in the first week of the second term. All in all, my 44 ExcelTrack credits were done in 11 weeks. If you're experienced in IT, determined, and have the time, averaging 4 modules completed per week is doable, albeit not easy.
  
• Assuming no surprises on grading my last couple assignments in Capstone (right now I have 100%), I'm ending with 49 credits of A and 1 credit of B for a 3.98 GPA.
  
• I think that for me, especially living in Big 10 country where the Purdue name carries quite a bit of weight, PUG was the right way to go. Cheap, quick, no huge drawbacks. There's a lack of professionalism in some of the coursework, and the quality of the professors was mixed, but all and all I had a very positive experience and would recommend this program to anyone in a similar situation as me.
  

Next up: MS in IT program starting in January, also from PUG -- officially accepted today. I'll post about it in the graduate forums as it gets a little closer.

[walruspanda]

FYI, many of the AWS certs that PUG offered credit for have had their credit reduced or changed. Here are the old equivalencies, with the deletions crossed out and additions in blue:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect—Associate
IN505: Security for Analytics
IN516: AWS Academy Cloud Architecting

AWS Certified Solutions Architect—Professional
IT306: Cloud Services Management (waiver)
IT413: Migrating Data and Applications to the Cloud
IN516: AWS Academy Cloud Architecting

AWS Certified Developer—Associate 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective
IN517: AWS Academy Cloud Developing

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator—Associate 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective
IN519: AWS Academy Cloud Operations

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer—Professional 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective

AWS Certified Security—Specialty 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT227: Cloud Infrastructure Administration
IT303: Virtualization and Cloud Security
IT306: Cloud Services Management

AWS Certified Advanced Networking—Specialty 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT227: Cloud Infrastructure Administration
IT273: Networking Concepts
IT278: Network Administration
IT303: Virtualization and Cloud Security
IT306: Cloud Services Management
IT413: Migrating Data and Applications in the Cloud

AWS Certified Database—Specialty 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective

AWS Certified Data Analytics—Specialty 
IN303: Data Mining and Data Warehousing
IN518: AWS Academy Data Analytics Lab

AWS Certified Machine Learning—Specialty 
IT400: Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Deep Learning and Machine Learning

AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder—Specialty 
IT213: Software Development Concepts
IT232: Software Design and Development Concepts
IT350: Advanced Database Concepts
IT391: Advanced Software Development Including Web and Mobility
IT481: Advanced Software Development
IT488: Software Product Development Using Agile

AWS Cloud Practitioner—Foundational 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT306: Cloud Services Management
IN515: AWS Academy Cloud Foundations

[ss20ts]

Ouch! They really killed those cert credits.

[walruspanda]

Ouch! They really killed those cert credits.

Yeah, PUG has done that recently with some other certs -- especially the W3Schools PHP Certificate, an easy certification which changed from giving 7 classes worth of credit to just one. (PUG made the correct decision, in my view.) That said, even after this PUG is still about the most generous school out there in giving college credit for IT certifications, which for anyone who's already had to get many of these certs (like me) is a strong reason to consider them for an IT degree.

[LevelUP]

FYI, many of the AWS certs that PUG offered credit for have had their credit reduced or changed. Here are the old equivalencies, with the deletions crossed out and additions in blue:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect—Associate
IN505: Security for Analytics
IN516: AWS Academy Cloud Architecting

AWS Certified Solutions Architect—Professional
IT306: Cloud Services Management (waiver)
IT413: Migrating Data and Applications to the Cloud
IN516: AWS Academy Cloud Architecting

AWS Certified Developer—Associate 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective
IN517: AWS Academy Cloud Developing

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator—Associate 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective
IN519: AWS Academy Cloud Operations

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer—Professional 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective

AWS Certified Security—Specialty 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT227: Cloud Infrastructure Administration
IT303: Virtualization and Cloud Security
IT306: Cloud Services Management

AWS Certified Advanced Networking—Specialty 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT227: Cloud Infrastructure Administration
IT273: Networking Concepts
IT278: Network Administration
IT303: Virtualization and Cloud Security
IT306: Cloud Services Management
IT413: Migrating Data and Applications in the Cloud

AWS Certified Database—Specialty 
IT5L: Lower-Level Information Technology Elective

AWS Certified Data Analytics—Specialty 
IN303: Data Mining and Data Warehousing
IN518: AWS Academy Data Analytics Lab

AWS Certified Machine Learning—Specialty 
IT400: Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Deep Learning and Machine Learning

AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder—Specialty 
IT213: Software Development Concepts
IT232: Software Design and Development Concepts
IT350: Advanced Database Concepts
IT391: Advanced Software Development Including Web and Mobility
IT481: Advanced Software Development
IT488: Software Product Development Using Agile

AWS Cloud Practitioner—Foundational 
IT222: Introduction to Cloud Computing
IT306: Cloud Services Management
IN515: AWS Academy Cloud Foundations

It's been a cat-and-mouse game keeping up with the ever-changing requirements of PUG IT degrees. Lots of Wiki updates.

Though PUG is still a great option versus going to WGU.