Western governors' University - WGU - competency based? Experience or opinions?

[GoodYellowDogs]

OP, I would highly recommend that you look at the AUPHA website and make sure whatever school you choose is approved through them or in the file for any master's in healthcare admin. The reason is that professional organizations such as ACHE and other jobs such as academia and some hospitals will want your grad degree in HA to be from an AUPHA approved / accredited program. Just something to consider. I used the AUPHA website to narrow down my list when I was looking at MHA programs. I don't believe WGU was on the list at that time. If you plan to get your ACHE fellow or want the best options once you graduate I highly recommend that you review the AUPHA site before you sign on anywhere. I have 30 years experience in healthcare and related industries, but I wasn't going to spend money on an MHA that wouldn't be recognized and accepted down the road. It is kind of like MBA programs and their accreditation agencies. You can have an RA MBA without the backing of the accreditation agencies you won't be as employable. Good luck!

I think that's a great suggestion for those out there who are starting or in the middle of the career. However, I'm well-established and just need the paper. I am planning to retire in 10 years and just need to stay eligible for promotions in my current organization. For some reason they don't care about where you got, just that you set a goal and completed it.

Thanks!

[valsacar]

@valsacar - I plan on pursuing an MSIA there at WGU. Would absolutely love to hear more about your course work! And, I'd like to do a refer-a-friend thing too.

When you're ready to apply just send me a PM and we'll take care of it.

I should be done with the course LKT2 (networks and security) today, the projects for it were pretty good IMO. One involved a briefing to "senior execs" at a government office explaining all of the different laws and regulations (FISMA, NIST, ISO, etc) that they have to deal with and use that as justification for additional IT staff. Another was basically creating a simple training manual/checklist for setting up SOHO routers, and the third one was about a merger of two companies into one (designing the IT side of that, diagrams and all).

The reason I like them is because the projects are similar to the types of things you would actually do on the job (the first 2 of those tasks are exactly like work I've been doing, just on different subjects). I've looked through all of my courses and they are all like that, so I'll assume the same holds true for all programs.

[dcan]

Those actually sound like very realistic scenarios, and similar to the kind of stuff we do where I work. Sounds like a good program. So is the MSIA program more technical or more management oriented? Sounds like the latter. If so I may look into it a lot more.