[WGU] Should I Just Go Ahead

[sirius]

Sorry for the weird formatting. At work and wanted to get this on here:

[dfrecore]

It's easy enough to see what will come in from Saylor, SL and Study.com. They will take other ACE credits, so you may want to do Sophia for anything you can; can't hurt to try if you can take a bunch of courses over 2-3 months there - then switch to SL (if you want, I personally hate them), then Study.com for the remainder (Study.com actually offers everything you need, but I understand saving money).

Sophia courses I'd probably take:
Intro to Comm: Public Speaking
Intro to Statistics
Geography (SocSci): Intro to Sociology
Humanities: Approaches to Studying Religions or Art History
Human Biology
Intro to IT
Project Management

For English 2, if you're a proficient typist, I'd take the CLEP or TECEP for that instead of doing a whole course.

[MNomadic]

I second taking project management at Sophia also with one caveat: taking project management at WGU gets you the CompTIA Project+ certification, so if you feel like that cert would be valuable to you, then take it at WGU. If you want to save time/money, you can take it at Sophia much quicker.

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Sophia just released a web dev foundations course. You can finish it in very little time. No idea if it would transfer in and satisfy WGU's requirement since no one has had a chance to transfer it in yet, but it only takes a few hours at most. So if you do any other courses at Sophia, you may as well do that one too.

[nemokg]

Hello all, thanks in advance for any advice! Let me know if I'm missing any information.

I'm currently in the enrollment period for the Networking Operations and Security (BSNOS) degree at WGU. As a sort of test, I decided to get my CCNA beforehand to make sure that I actually have the discipline to self-educate myself. I passed and it accounts for 17 CU's at WGU. I have 14 GenEd CU's transferred in for a total of 31. Due to the CCNA knocking out so many credits I've been doing some digging into what other certifications I can transfer in and as a result I've been reading about CLEP exams, saylor.com, etc. Now I'm reading the threads on this site and I'm interested in the Big 3.

Here's my "dilemma". Should I even bother to research all of this stuff or just stick with WGU? I've got a start date and everything I hear about them is great. I'd like to finish in 2-3 years and I think that through WGU I can accomplish that but if I can do the same thing via one of the other online colleges for cheaper then I'm definitely interested.

So I think I have three options: Start WGU right away, delay WGU and try and get some StraighterLine/Saylor classes transferred in, or forget about WGU and do one of the Big 3.

What do you think, is WGU even an option?

Classes: English Composition I, Technical Communication, Applied Algebra, Natural Science Lab, Integrated Physical Sciences
Certifications: CCNA
Job History: 4+ years IT experience. Currently a L2. Work for a small school district so I get to play around with everything even though I'm not the sysadmin.
Career Goal: Would like to get into automation, either cloud or networking. If I get to work with Linux I'm happy.
Time Available: Can do 2-3 hours of study every day. This is what I did for the CCNA with some extra hours on Saturdays for when I fell behind.

Hey at WGU is very possible to finish in 2-3 years, with StraighterLine you can finish even quicker! I recommend knocking out some courses for your degree at StraighterLine then finishing off at WGU. When you combine both WGU & StraighterLine they are very affordable and allow you to finish way faster than traditional universities. I'm attaching a link where you can look at courses at StraighterLine that transfer over to WGU https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...753&pid=82 
I hope this helps!

[sirius]

Hello all, thanks in advance for any advice! Let me know if I'm missing any information.

I'm currently in the enrollment period for the Networking Operations and Security (BSNOS) degree at WGU. As a sort of test, I decided to get my CCNA beforehand to make sure that I actually have the discipline to self-educate myself. I passed and it accounts for 17 CU's at WGU. I have 14 GenEd CU's transferred in for a total of 31. Due to the CCNA knocking out so many credits I've been doing some digging into what other certifications I can transfer in and as a result I've been reading about CLEP exams, saylor.com, etc. Now I'm reading the threads on this site and I'm interested in the Big 3.

Here's my "dilemma". Should I even bother to research all of this stuff or just stick with WGU? I've got a start date and everything I hear about them is great. I'd like to finish in 2-3 years and I think that through WGU I can accomplish that but if I can do the same thing via one of the other online colleges for cheaper then I'm definitely interested.

So I think I have three options: Start WGU right away, delay WGU and try and get some StraighterLine/Saylor classes transferred in, or forget about WGU and do one of the Big 3.

What do you think, is WGU even an option?

Classes: English Composition I, Technical Communication, Applied Algebra, Natural Science Lab, Integrated Physical Sciences
Certifications: CCNA
Job History: 4+ years IT experience. Currently a L2. Work for a small school district so I get to play around with everything even though I'm not the sysadmin.
Career Goal: Would like to get into automation, either cloud or networking. If I get to work with Linux I'm happy.
Time Available: Can do 2-3 hours of study every day. This is what I did for the CCNA with some extra hours on Saturdays for when I fell behind.

Hey at WGU is very possible to finish in 2-3 years, with StraighterLine you can finish even quicker! I recommend knocking out some courses for your degree at StraighterLine then finishing off at WGU. When you combine both WGU & StraighterLine they are very affordable and allow you to finish way faster than traditional universities. I'm attaching a link where you can look at courses at StraighterLine that transfer over to WGU https://partners.wgu.edu/Pages/Single.as...753&pid=82 
I hope this helps!

Yup, that's the plan. I might add Sophia/Study.com courses as well to try and get the harder-level coursework out of the way. Thanks for the advice!

[rachel83az]

2-3 years is how long you are "supposed" to spend at WGU. The issue is that's not as affordable as other options could be.

[sirius]

2-3 years is how long you are "supposed" to spend at WGU. The issue is that's not as affordable as other options could be.

Yes, and there's really no point in doing so unless you're lazy and don't want to do the research into CLEP, StraighterLine, etc. The only way I can see one doing WGU straight thru would be to take advantage of scholarships/grants.

[MNomadic]

Just a heads up to OP, WGU's BSNOS *may* be getting phased out(this is just someone's post, not an official announcement):
https://www.reddit.com/r/WGUIT/comments/...urce=share

It's not the end of the world, as there are still plenty of other great degree options, but you may want to reach out to your enrollment counselor to see if this will affect your plans.

[sirius]

Just a heads up to OP, WGU's BSNOS *may* be getting phased out(this is just someone's post, not an official announcement):
https://www.reddit.com/r/WGUIT/comments/...urce=share

It's not the end of the world, as there are still plenty of other great degree options, but you may want to reach out to your enrollment counselor to see if this will affect your plans.

Thanks so much, I'll be keeping an eye out then.

[bluebooger]

2-3 years is how long you are "supposed" to spend at WGU. The issue is that's not as affordable as other options could be.

Yes, and there's really no point in doing so unless you're lazy and don't want to do the research into CLEP, StraighterLine, etc. The only way I can see one doing WGU straight thru would be to take advantage of scholarships/grants.

people can easily knock out WGU courses in a couple of days or even fewer                  
saw a post on WGU's reddit where somebody did the Natural Science lab by comparing how long it took to boil water with salt vs how long it took to boil without                    
I'm not sure any CLEP facilities are open at the moment, but I'm sure you could knock out WGU's American History faster than it would take to commute to the nearest CLEP testing center and complete a CLEP American History 

there are many dedicated posters on reddit who complete a degree in year, some even in one 6 month term