My BS in 1.5 years - my experience with CLEP/DSST/SL/WGU

[jessikalauren]

Thanks for posting! I had basically given up on this thread since I noticed the forum deleted a number of my posts during their many transitions.

It is certainly a learning experience. I've only *really* been in for a week and I'm working to navigate my way through. I need to wait for their webcam to arrive which should be sometime this week. I am very close to competency in three courses so I'm thinking about knocking them out next weekend. I have also completed two papers for one class, and started on the two papers for another class, so I'm thinking it may also be nice to just go through every course I have left and knock out the performance assessments (papers, powerpoint, etc) so all I have left is studying for all of the final assessments (testing is what I'm best at).

My goal is to finish these 40 CUs by Halloween! I have between now and then to decide if I want to move onto the MBA or the MSML afterwards. WGU recently changed their policies so I could pick any commencement they host throughout the country, which is exciting! I'm leaning toward next June in Vegas, I'll definitely be able to walk for my bachelor's, but if I want to walk for my master's also that means I'll have to finish everything but the capstone in four months (ack).

[rowan555]

I didn't know about the policy change re: graduation - this is fantastic news!

[jessikalauren]

Today is technically my 10th day at WGU and WOW I already have so much under my belt. I feel like I've been at it for years.

- Progress: Passed my first OA last night (Compensation & Benefits).  There are three more that I'm *almost* competent in: Training & Development, Recruitment & Selection, and Employment Law. Six papers required, I've submitted three. My goal is to have all of these in the blue (or in Tasksteam) by Sunday. After that, I'll likely tackle one class at a time.

To anyone thinking "is WGU for me?" - DO IT.  It's great for people like me who have been self-paced, finding resources for myself, etc., but I can see where it's also a great option for those who like structure, more time on classes, etc.

- Taskstream: This is where you submit performance assessments for evaluation and it's definitely the monster that everyone is describing. Everything takes 3-4 days to be evaluated. My first paper I was diligent, painstaking, so picky - that was silly. It came back with revisions needed. I resubmitted and waited 3 more days, more revisions. Third attempt - it passed. My second paper needed revisions once. I submitted my third paper a few days ago, it is much longer than the others (13 pages) so I swear I only did the bare-bones minimum and it probably *only barely* made sense. I'm anticipating revisions galore but you know what, I think it will be easier and less stressful this way. I'm thinking of it as their evaluating my rough draft and then sending specific feedback.

- Cohorts:  I see people barely talking about them so I wasn't planning on paying much mind to them but I LOVE COHORTS. I went through ALL of my courses and signed up for each and every cohort, I figure at least with something on my calendar it keeps me on track, and I can always unenroll in it later.  This is a great way to balance coursework for multiple classes at once (ie: studying for an OA while waiting on Tasksteam to evaluate, etc.)

- Mentors:  Holy wow!  I lucked out with a great student mentor.  I told him I wanted to go FAST and he's been on board every step of the way.  I texted him yesterday to unlock two OAs and he did it within minutes.  His response was "you have free reign until you fail one, then I'm going to slow you down."  This one-sentence comment made me feel so empowered, but also very mindful and cautious at the same time.  I know I can be reckless with my fast pace sometimes but now he makes me feel like I want to keep his trust in order to keep this control and pace going.  

Course mentors are great too!  I was powering through the many, many papers required of my first few classes and I stumbled on one.  It was probably due to burnout but I scheduled a block of time with the course mentor, and she helped walk through every single step with me.  It almost seems too good to be true sometimes.

- I'm not sure why everyone says they only let you work on one class at a time. Maybe this is referring to objective assessments (final exams), but if I ask my mentor to unlock more than one, he will, so long as he trusts the pace I'm on.  I thought I'd study, test, study, test, etc.  But with some courses that I know I'll need a little more help on, like Project Management, I've given in to the weekly cohorts. Weekly cohorts are not available for every class but they're awesome, it breaks the class up into management chunks (usually a 4-week session) and feels more like a "classroom"-type course.