A little WGU MSISA Review ....

[stretcharmy]

Does WGU have their own study materials or do they go through EC-Council? I just started the EC-Council training, but never like to only use one source of material when taking cert exams. Just curious if you have any other sources you think were really good.

they Just use ec-council

[stretcharmy]

The most frustrating part about WGU is the assignment wording and rubrics. They are very subjective and quite frankly you have to guess a lot as to what they "REALLY" want. The graders seem to be looking for some key words and if you don't have them it gets sent back. Here is an example of what I mean.

The assignment
1. Describe what air is

The rubric
The student describes what are is and is not with sufficient detail.

Submission 1
Air is the major component of the earths atmosphere. It is mostly comprised of nitrogen, but also contains significant amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The air in the upper atmosphere contains large amounts of ozone that protects us from the suns radiation.

Graders notes
you did a good job of defining what air is, but you need to "define what air is and is not with sufficient detail"

Submission 2
Air is the major component of the earths atmosphere. It is mostly comprised of nitrogen, but also contains significant amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The air in the upper atmosphere contains large amounts of ozone that protects us from the suns radiation. Air is not a single component but made of many different components.

Graders notes
good job but to meet criteria you need to provide "sufficient detail" about what air is not.

Submission 3
Air is the major component of the earths atmosphere. It is mostly comprised of nitrogen, but also contains significant amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The air in the upper atmosphere contains large amounts of ozone that protects us from the suns radiation. Air is not a single component but made of many different components. Air is not a mammal.

Graders notes
Great job!

At the end you just end up asking WTF just happened?

[bricabrac]

Submission 3
Air is the major component of the earths atmosphere. It is mostly comprised of nitrogen, but also contains significant amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The air in the upper atmosphere contains large amounts of ozone that protects us from the suns radiation. Air is not a single competent but made of many different components. Air is not a mammal.

Graders notes
Great job!

At the end you just end up asking WTF just happened?

I guess I now understand how so many seem to run though the WGU masters programs so easily. This situation is very disturbing. I wonder if this is an international effort; are the graders overseas?

Wow...just, Wow. :confused:

[JTP]

Grading system is unfortunate.

[stretcharmy]

It's really just regurgitation of the course material. They don't really want to you think outside the box and come up with real solutions. I guess you can say the same about any school, not just WGU.

The frustrating part is having to guess. I've been working for 20 years, and guess what, my bosses pretty clearly defined what was expected. And if I needed clarification, I could do this amazing thing called "asking a question". After asking said question, I would be bestowed with the information that I needed to complete what was expected. I have tried to contact a course mentor 6 times. 5 times I was unsuccessful and on the sixth, the mentor told me to do exactly what the grader said was wrong and I ended up coming up with my own solution.

I have learned things, but this is because I'm a lifetime learner and can read, assimilate, and understand information. It has not been from of any of the assignments. Those are exercises in playing a stupid game for which the rules are kept secret.

Nothing I have said here is really new on this forum. I ready similar complaints before, it's just more frustrating when you are the one experiencing it.

[stretcharmy]

I guess I now understand how so many seem to run though the WGU masters programs so easily. This situation is very disturbing. I wonder if this is an international effort; are the graders overseas?

Wow...just, Wow. :confused:

From what I can tell from the jobs posted at WGU, the graders have 3+ years of experience and a masters degree in the field. They could be from overseas as I see plenty of poor English. My favorite was

"you need to provide more details and elaborate to succinctly define what..."

Really webster? I need to add more so that I can be concise? I'm pretty sure you were looking for something like "comprehensively define"

To be fair, this grader sounded like an ignorant American that was trying to be all smart and powerful and came off as an ignorant jerk.

[sanantone]

It seems like WGU has more of a busy work approach than an approach that encourages critical and analytical thinking. This is often how schools without many full-time instructors/professors operate. In WGU's case, they have no instructors.

[stretcharmy]

It seems like WGU has more of a busy work approach than an approach that encourages critical and analytical thinking. This is often how schools without many full-time instructors/professors operate. In WGU's case, they have no instructors.

Busy work is a great way of putting it.

[stretcharmy]

I passed the CEH on Friday last week. Ended up with a 92% but I marked 31 questions on the test that I didn't feel 100% confident on the answer. Apparently most of those were correct. They do expose you to a lot of tools and many of these and their specific capabilities are on the test. You def want to know Nmap. All in all I would put this at medium difficulty as far as cert tests go.

Now it's on to CHFI

[mednat]

Congrats on passing the CEH exams. I don't intend to persue a MS in security, but it is a significant portion of my background so it's nice to see how WGU presents the material. Thanks for the updates and feedback, I enjoy reading it alot!