Questions about WGU MBA

[RoyalSpade]

For those who have Done WGUs MBA. How difficult is it? Is it doable to get it in the 6 month time phrame?

[Merlin]

For those who have Done WGUs MBA. How difficult is it? Is it doable to get it in the 6 month time phrame?

Those questions are hard to answer since everyone is different.

The difficulty depends on a lot of factors. This is a competency-based degree, so the biggest factor is how much prior knowledge you have of business administration subjects including accounting, economics, financial management, marketing, statistics, and general management & HR, plus whatever your MBA focus area is. If you've just completed a business administration degree, then the MBA is going to be a bit easier for you since it will cover many of the same topics, just focused less on the theory and more on application. Likewise, if you have experience in business management and/or HR, you'll see many familiar topics that will help you move through the material more quickly.

The timeline depends on prior knowledge, learning speed, and how much free time you have to study. Can it be done in a single 6-month term? Yes. We have a few people on this forum that have completed a master's degree at WGU in a single term, myself included. Was it easy? No... I doubt anyone would say that it was easy. Personally, I was putting 40-60 hours a week into it, and I came into the MBA program fresh out of my BSBA and with more than 20 years of business operations and IT management experience. Then again, I was also focused on getting exemplary in every subject, so I tend to overstudy.

As I've posted here before, this is not an easy degree. It may not be as painful as some more traditional degrees, but it is real graduate-level work. While there are some pretty straightforward courses, there are also a few that make your undergrad capstone course look easy. Nobody should go into this degree thinking they can complete it in a single term. The average student takes 4 terms to finish, though most accelerators do it in 2-3. Very few finish in a single term.

My recommendation is that if you think you've got a pretty good handle on the material going into this and you have at least 20-40 hours a week to invest in study, plan for 2-3 terms and hope to finish in 1 term. If you plan for 1 and then find it takes 2-3, you're not going to be happy.

[RoyalSpade]

For those who have Done WGUs MBA. How difficult is it? Is it doable to get it in the 6 month time phrame?

Those questions are hard to answer since everyone is different.

The difficulty depends on a lot of factors. This is a competency-based degree, so the biggest factor is how much prior knowledge you have of business administration subjects including accounting, economics, financial management, marketing, statistics, and general management & HR, plus whatever your MBA focus area is. If you've just completed a business administration degree, then the MBA is going to be a bit easier for you since it will cover many of the same topics, just focused less on the theory and more on application. Likewise, if you have experience in business management and/or HR, you'll see many familiar topics that will help you move through the material more quickly.

The timeline depends on prior knowledge, learning speed, and how much free time you have to study. Can it be done in a single 6-month term? Yes. We have a few people on this forum that have completed a master's degree at WGU in a single term, myself included. Was it easy? No... I doubt anyone would say that it was easy. Personally, I was putting 40-60 hours a week into it, and I came into the MBA program fresh out of my BSBA and with more than 20 years of business operations and IT management experience. Then again, I was also focused on getting exemplary in every subject, so I tend to overstudy.

As I've posted here before, this is not an easy degree. It may not be as painful as some more traditional degrees, but it is real graduate-level work. While there are some pretty straightforward courses, there are also a few that make your undergrad capstone course look easy. Nobody should go into this degree thinking they can complete it in a single term. The average student takes 4 terms to finish, though most accelerators do it in 2-3. Very few finish in a single term.

My recommendation is that if you think you've got a pretty good handle on the material going into this and you have at least 20-40 hours a week to invest in study, plan for 2-3 terms and hope to finish in 1 term. If you plan for 1 and then find it takes 2-3, you're not going to be happy.

I'd be interested to see the class syllabus for each of the courses just to get a general idea of the content in each course. Roughly speaking, how many modules are there in each course?

[Merlin]

I'd be interested to see the class syllabus for each of the courses just to get a general idea of the content in each course. Roughly speaking, how many modules are there in each course?

Each course is different so there isn't a standard number of modules. I'd estimate that there are roughly 4-8 competencies per class.

The syllabi for all the WGU courses are online, but you probably don't need to find them to answer your questions. Just download the program guide for each degree you're interested in. That lists all the courses that are required for each degree program and also breaks down each course into a list of modules/competencies. That should give you a really good idea of what to expect.

If you want more details, you can also use google to track down the syllabus for each course, but those probably won't add a whole lot more information over what is in the program guide. I downloaded them for my degree before I started but found that they didn't really provide any new information.

[ss20ts]

They've been making a bunch of changes to their degrees and course requirements so old syllabuses may not be helpful. They also change the course numbers often as the course content changes frequently.

[Merlin]

They've been making a bunch of changes to their degrees and course requirements so old syllabuses may not be helpful. They also change the course numbers often as the course content changes frequently.

I think most of the changes have been happening in the undergrad programs, but yes WGU does adapt their degree programs and course selections to reflect new material at least every few years. More often for courses that evolve quickly or for those that are troublesome for one reason or another.

In any case, this is another reason to use the program guide as your reference, since those get updated first.