WGU Education Degree Path

[Ad Nauseam]

Hello, I was hoping to get some advice on getting a degree in education from WGU. I already have quite a few of the general education credits from Sophia. I’m not really sure what the entire process looks like though. 
My goal is to become a teacher and I’d like to teach overseas in China. I’m also open to teaching here in the United States for a few years for experience. I’ve been reading through some of the threads on here and it seems WGU also offers a good route into a masters in education? I’m 27 years old and looking to make a career change so any help would be great. 
I found this on the Wiki: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/WG...egree_Plan
The 19 core courses that have no place to take them, I assume are also to be taken at WGU alongside the 56 non-transferable courses?
Thanks a lot! Also I apologize for the cluster of text, I’m on mobile and it’s not letting me properly space it out.

[bjcheung77]

Welcome to the board! At a quick glance, that's what it shows... You've got about less than half the degree that can be transferred in, the rest are not transferable. I would highly recommend you to fill in the addendum and template when you have access to a laptop or desktop, the more info we have from you, the better we'll be able to assist you further.

[Ad Nauseam]

Welcome to the board! At a quick glance, that's what it shows... You've got about less than half the degree that can be transferred in, the rest are not transferable.  I would highly recommend you to fill in the addendum and template when you have access to a laptop or desktop, the more info we have from you, the better we'll be able to assist you further.

Oh where do I get the template from? I only have access to an iPad and my phone right now. Will be picking up a laptop sometime next week. Would I be able to fill it out from my phone? I have all of my information ready.

[bjcheung77]

Here's the addendum and template, I would copy/paste and update it with your info, keep it short and sweet if you want, as compact and concise as possible if you wanted... Just want to know a bigger overall picture of your scenario and any extra info will help us help you... Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[Ad Nauseam]

Here's the addendum and template, I would copy/paste and update it with your info, keep it short and sweet if you want, as compact and concise as possible if you wanted...  Just want to know a bigger overall picture of your scenario and any extra info will help us help you... Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

Thank you! I’ll list the information here!

Your Location: Hawaii(Oahu), United States. 
Your Age: 27
What kind of degree do you want?: I’d like a career as a teacher. I have thought of teaching overseas in China and potentially pursuing a masters in education. I’d also teach here locally as I’m told building up experience in your home country is really useful for when you go overseas. I’d like to teach Elementary School as well. Taking things one step at a time right now, but am determined.
Current Regional Accredited Credits: None.

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: 

Sophia Credits: 24
Ancient Greek Philosophers, 3, 100% 
English Composition 1, 3, 89%
Introduction to Business, 3, 88%
Introduction to Ethics, 3, 88%
Introduction to Information Technology, 3, 83%
Introduction to Nutrition, 3, 93%
Introduction to Sociology, 3, 92%
Introduction to Web Development, 3, 83%

Any certifications or military experience? None.

Budget: I have about $5k saved, but my expenses are very low since I catch the bus, live in a cheaper area, and don’t ever spend money on anything. I don’t go out or do anything ever. I invested a good amount of money into original magic art, but have slowed down almost to a stop recently as I have a decently large inventory. That being said, I can afford to be a lot more flexible here. My monthly discretionary income is around $1500. I’d like to finish as soon as I can. That’s my number one priority, but if the cost would be a lot more while only saving me a small amount of time, I’d save the money instead. I like the idea of WGU allowing you to blow through as many credits as you can in a semester. My budget and schedule would work well with that.

Commitments: I work full time, but that’s it. I have plenty of time left in the day after work as it’s only half my day.

Dedicated time to study: I think a reasonable amount of study for me would be 40 hours per week across 7 days. I used to study Vanilla JavaScript more than that weekly for 6 months. After getting decent at that, I decided it wasn’t for me as a career.

Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal. However long this will take is fine with me.

Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None. I’ve gotten student aid before, but I was 19 years old and flunked out. Just wasn’t ready back then. I had no goals and wasn’t focused. Not sure if I can get anymore aid after that.

I like the idea of testing out. Most of the Sophia courses I’ve taken were finished the same day or in a few days. I don’t think there’s a class out there that would require me to spend months and months on learning the material. I’m also okay with assignments and assessments too. English comp had me write a bunch of papers. I’m also 90% of the way through public speaking which also had me do projects.

[nykorn]

I've taught ESL in Asia and am getting my MA in Elementary Education at WGU right now.

- Yes, a degree is worth it. They interview all people with Education degrees first before anyone else, there is usually 0 to 2 candidates like that per job, and they often give them higher pay.

- Some Asian countries like Korea try to require that you had physical in person teaching as part of your certificate or degree in order to get the job or visa. AFAIK China is not like this but it would be good to do the internship just in case anything changes in the future.

- The degree most in demand all around the world is Elementary Education, sometimes called Early Education. For a US license, you can usually test into endorsements (permissions to teach) for practically all other subjects including high school and the Chinese language that you may want without needing to take additional courses, so it isn't usually worth it to get a degree specifically for secondary school. Most people who get jobs with curriculum design do not have a degree in it, they just get it through luck or seniority.

- If you want to land in a specific position, such as Special Ed, Curriculum Design or something else, GET IT IN THE US FIRST. The reason is the US is so strapped for teachers, it is the best time to get into the field because you can currently get hired for a job that normally requires 20 years of experience to qualify for, just because they can't find anyone to do that role.

- With a US teacher's license you can also teach abroad at a US military base or International School like IB school which uses American curriculum. This typically means you get US wages and (if on a military base) US military benefits while still getting a visa to live in that foreign country and still enjoying the low cost living. So you may want to look into other Chinese-speaking countries where you can do that. You should also be able to do some extra work and transfer your license into a Chinese teaching license later on.

- In my case I can finish the equivalent of 1 CU a day. I'm not sure about all degrees, but they structured mine so that the longest courses were first, so after I finished about 30% of the degree I just had a long string of 1 CU courses left plus the student internship courses.

- WGU has told me there is usually no difference in the career field between a BA or MA when it comes to Education jobs, they are of equal weight. They said it is usually senseless to get a BA in Education then go back and get an MA in another Education subject, for example.

- Get a 120 hour TEFL online as well, some jobs want that on top of a degree, this is partially because Asia loves to use recruitment agencies to hire people and the recruiters themselves have NO IDEA about the field of education. Practically no one in Asia cares about the CELTA. Literally I have been interviewed for ESL jobs by people like some girl fresh out of college who didn't understand that you are not normally actually free during the 5 minutes between classes, who was just going down a checklist as to my interview responses, and when my response didn't fit the checklist she would just ask the same question again.

- Take the HSK as well, they will probably want to know your score. As an example, my BA was in Japanese, but Japanese recruiters still wanted me to take the JLPT which is the equivalent of the HSK.

The WGU for teaching licensure is set up like this:
- Take non-Education related courses. I'm in a Master's so I have none of these.
- Take around 20 CU of general Education-related classes common to most Education degrees. You can do this in 1-2 months. Then you qualify to begin the internship.
- Take around 15 CU of major-specific and state-specific classes. This means stuff like "How to teach math to elementary schoolers" and "History of Hawaii".
- Take around 20 CU of internship-specific courses. You must be in an active internship, and it is stuff like "Spend 25 hours interacting with students," "Spend 25 hours planning and implementing lessons".
- After graduating both the internship and all courses, you get your degree plus your teaching license.
- If you want to go teach in another state or foreign country, use all the stuff to apply for a reciprocity license if able.

In order to start the internship process, aside from completing those first 20 CU of general Education credits:
- Get background check, teacher's insurance, WGU ID card, state permission for "preclinical teaching" (this means student teaching internship), take the PRAXIS (state exam basically the same as a GED exam - reading, writing, math). You have to wait for all of the results for this, it will typically take 1-3 months.
- Submit resume and cover letter to WGU in the exact format WGU requires.
- Go to 3 or so WGU webinars regarding student teaching or WGU itself, these are usually only held once a month.
- Then apply for student teaching.
- WGU then takes up to 3 months to find you a local internship place, you can sometimes reach out to schools directly to get it to move faster.

Student teaching is a certain number of hours spread out across consecutive days, which means you can't do a month of internship in June, break for summer vacation, then continue in September. They will make you start in September instead. Internship is FULL TIME and UNPAID. I messed up and started at WGU in March, that means school got out for summer in the middle of my 1st term and it was literally impossible to have done the internship in my first term.

After you get your state teaching license, you need to either be teaching at a registered US school or take continuing education courses every few years in order to keep your license valid. I have no idea what happens if you let it become invalid because you were teaching abroad and not doing continuing education, or how easy it is to reinstate your license. If you are teaching in China and getting paid poor wages (remember - you don't normally get paid in summertime and many companies do a lot of illegal stuff about wages to lower your pay compared to what was promised, I speak from experience), that is something to think about as you may not be able to afford the US continuing education required to keep the license.