South College DBA Program (IT Specialization) - Progress Tracker

[wiresandscreens]

Someone else had an existing thread on the South College DBA program meant to provide feedback and tracking on their progress. I thought this was a good idea and wanted to create my own sort of tracker along with basic thoughts as I move through the program. There is almost no information out there regarding acceleration in this CBE program, so hopefully this can help answer some questions to potential students in the future. This will not be an all encompassing tracker covering all aspects of the program, but instead more of a general feel and informational.

I enrolled and started classes on 3/1/25 and initial thoughts on the program up to now is that it is well thought out and paper intensive. I graduated from WGU with both a Bachelor’s and Master's degree and accelerated very quickly for both, finishing my Bachelor’s in about 1 month and my Master's in 7 days, so I know I have the capabilities to accelerate in any program that allows it. I can already tell that South's DBA is much more intensive in both quantity and quality of papers. At WGU, following the rubric was the only requirement; if it asked for 3 sources and 10 paragraphs for a paper that was all I completed and it was graded and passed. I find that South expects more from students in their papers, which is welcome in a doctoral level course. For example, nearly all of the papers I have written are open ended, there are no hard requirements as to maximum pages or sources. They expect the student to do their own research and put together a well written research paper. There is much more freedom to write papers based on your own subject while using the topic of the assignment. I find this to be beneficial to keep writing fresh, but others may feel differently.

Long story short, this is much more difficult than WGU but it is absolutely able to be accelerated. I work on schoolwork every day, typically at night once I am back from my job and the hours are significantly more than I had to put in at WGU. At my current pace I hope to be done with all courses besides the dissertation or capstone in the next 2 months or sooner. It all depends on how fast assignments continue to be graded.

3/1: Classes start (I took the day off since it was a Saturday, so no work done).

3/2: Started working on the program. Completed the majority of DBA 6505. Waited on some grading.

3/3: Completed DBA 6505 pending final grades. Started DBA 6506.

3/4: Completed majority of DBA 6506. Waiting on grading while I continued working.

3/5: Completed DBA 6506 pending final grading.

3/6: All grades in, passed DBA 6506. Waited a few hours for course to disappear from my portal and then a new one appeared around 6pm local time. Looked at the course but didn't work on it that night.

3/7 to 3/10: Worked on and off on DBA 6525 and as of today have completed all work. Waiting on grading but I'm graded up to Module 4 out of 5 Modules. Still need to submit final papers once grading is complete and then wait a day or two for that to be graded.

3/11: Some papers were graded on DBA 6525 and I was able to submit the classes final paper. Waiting on grading.

3/12: DBA 6525 passed in the afternoon once final paper was graded. After about 3 hours the course was removed from my portal and replaced with DBA 6635. I started working on the course that night and completed all of Modules 1 and 2 out of 6 total Modules.

3/13-3/14: Continuing to work on DBA 6635. By the end of the night on 3/14 all assignments were complete aside from a single locked assignment I cannot see or work on until the rest are graded.

3/15: The professor graded a large amount of my assignments in DBA 6635 and all that is left for grading is Module 5. Once that is complete (hopefully they are all graded on Monday) I can see the final locked assignment and complete it. I plan to finish that final assignment the same day it unlocks to hopefully get my next class loaded on Monday or Tuesday.

3/16: Nothing new graded yet. I expect the remainder of grades to come back tomorrow. Once this class is passed, that leaves a total of 7 classes including the final dissertation or capstone.

[Tireman4]

Thank you for sharing this journey with us Mr. Screens!

[wiresandscreens]

Update to my current course: DBA 6635 (Organizational Behavior and Dynamics). Course has been passed as of this morning taking a total of 7 days to complete, mostly waiting on grading.  If all goes according to plan, this next course will take about a week before moving on to the next course. This leaves 7 courses including the final capstone for program completion.

Most work was completed a few days ago and was pending grading. No major issues with the material, but the course did require a fair bit of research to find scholarly sources to use throughout. I felt the content was well paced and initial assignments built upon themselves leading up to the final assignment which used data from earlier in the course. Very self-directed papers that were based on your own data in addition to the class requirements for each assignment.


3/17: Waiting on all existing work to be graded. There was one final paper I could not see until everything else was graded, so one more to go before course completion.

3/18: All work was graded and I was able to see the final paper. I had time to work on it and complete it that night so it was submitted the same day it unlocked.

3/19: As of this morning the final paper was graded and passed. It typically it takes a few hours for the current course to drop from my student portal and be replaced by the new course so hopefully I can start my new course tonight.

[Tireman4]

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

[bjcheung77]

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

That's how I read it as well, that's an amazing pace to be at... Congrats OP on getting the first four out of the way.

[wiresandscreens]

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

That is correct. I am aiming to pass at minimum one class per 7 days. If grading is done same or next day for every assignment, it is possible to pass two per week or so at the current pace. This weeks class had 3.5 days of downtime in which I did no work and was just waiting on assignments, so with the right professor it is absolutely possible to accelerate even faster. This is barring the final capstone assignment which I expect will take longer than a week to complete.

---

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

That's how I read it as well, that's an amazing pace to be at...  Congrats OP on getting the first four out of the way.

Thank you for the encouragement, I will keep working towards degree completion at as fast of a pace as they allow.

[Tireman4]

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

That is correct. I am aiming to pass at minimum one class per 7 days. If grading is done same or next day for every assignment, it is possible to pass two per week or so at the current pace. This weeks class had 3.5 days of downtime in which I did no work and was just waiting on assignments, so with the right professor it is absolutely possible to accelerate even faster. This is barring the final capstone assignment which I expect will take longer than a week to complete.

---

So, as of my count, four classes in 18 days completed?

That's how I read it as well, that's an amazing pace to be at...  Congrats OP on getting the first four out of the way.

Thank you for the encouragement, I will keep working towards degree completion at as fast of a pace as they allow.

Congratulations. I am deeply impressed. I cannot even fathom the energy nor the comprehension to be able to do that.

[wiresandscreens]

I have started DBA 6645 as of 3/19 and so far am up to the beginning of Module 4 out of 5 total Modules. Total papers completed last night were 7 with one additional paper completed today (so far) for a total of 8 papers since the course unlocked. The initial paper has been graded successfully by the professor and more grading is expected tomorrow. This course is much more paper intensive, with may papers requiring a minimum of 5 pages. While that does not sound like a lot of writing, the assignments do a good job of requiring critical thought which adds to the time it takes to write one to meet the requirements posted.

3/19: DBA 6645 unlocked during the afternoon. I read over the course assignments at work during my break and planned to do some writing when I got home that night. Once at home, I was able to complete up to the last paper for Module 3 out of 5 total modules.

3/20: My first paper was graded and passed. I had some time to finish the final paper in Module 3 today so that is ready to submit for grading when the time comes. That leaves a total of 6 papers left for this course. I plan to get the majority, if not all, of them completed tonight when I have time to work on them.

[wiresandscreens]

Grading may be slower on this course, but hopefully I can still complete the class by next Wednesday.

3/21: As of this post I have completed all assignments except for the final two summative papers in the final module. Grading is only done up to Module 1 Summative 1 and it appears that only one or two papers are graded at a time. This can cause a considerable delay in waiting on grades if the trend continues. By Sunday I should have the entire course completed on my end.