Hey can anyone help out a new guy?

[clep3705]

There are multiple answers and none of us have to live with the consequences of what you do with that advice. Take the opinions of many and formulate your own answer.

WGU is a special case in that once admitted it apparently doesn't let you add CLEP credits. People who know WGU well can advise you better. I bring it up to point out that every school has its own rules. It's best for you to understand each school's rules. Avoid the trap of assuming if three schools do things one way, so must a fourth school. Also, what a school does today may not be what they do in the future or did in the past.

It's easier to test out of an associate's degree than a bachelor's degree. Life has gotten in your way once. It could again. Compare the following two scenarios:

1. You test out and take courses for a total of 60 semester hours. You obtain an associate's degree.
2. You decide your end goal is a bachelor's degree and you skip the associate's degree. You accumulate 90 hours but don't quite have the correct hours for an associate's degree. Life gets in the way. You have no degree even though you have far more credits than an associate's degree.

After life gets in the way, do you want to tell employers you have an unfinished bachelor's degree or a completed associate's degree? Properly planned, an associate's degree on the way to a bachelor's degree will not delay the time it takes to obtain the bachelor's degree.

IT related degrees at the associate's level come in all versions. Choose carefully. IT credits in a technical or vocational track might not transfer to a university program. That's more likely to be true if the degree is officially named something other than associate of arts or associate of science.

IT certifications are like produce. Put them on a shelf and they rot over time becoming worthless. But produce is healthy when consumed when fresh. Academic degrees are valuable for life because they allow you to check that checkbox on a job application forever.

You could get an associate's degree, then get some certifications, and finally go to a school that is particularly friendly to IT certifications.

What do you want to do in IT? There's helpdesk work, networking, coding, cloud development, training, and many other areas of focus. How do you know you want to go into IT? The higher paying work is often mind numbingly monotonous and excruciatingly tedious.