Western Governor's (WGU) Course Work Question for Current or Former Students

I'm considering attending WGU for another BS degree in order to be eligible for an some additional certifications. The problem is that I was told since it is a competency based program I can just do the exams to complete courses in areas that I have extensive work experience. Now in doing some additional research on WGU I discover that their courses have lots of "busy work" and long essay writing that doesn't necessarily teach the concepts and is required to complete the courses. I've also heard about inconsistencies and errors in the grading service that grades these papers making it very frustrating and increasing your time to get out of each course.

I'm hoping someone here has taken courses with them and can let me know if it is true that as long as you pass the exams you can get credit or do you need to complete all this busy work too? I'm trying to complete this program in 6 months, as I have already completed a lot of the courses and am waiting for their official eval.

I just don't want to take the word of the "sales counselor" that I can just do the exams then find out otherwise after I pay my tuition fee. Since their fee structure does encourage them to want to keep you in the program longer, I'm afraid to trust what I've been told after reading the student feedback. The program director won't return my emails so I'm kinda stuck. I have some other options, but I liked the WGU program best for cost and outcome, but I don't want to spin my wheels there for a year or more.

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

Hi Marianne -

Hopefully, I can help here:

1. None of the work is busy work as compared to a conventional brick and mortar education. Reason: None of the domains (courses) require more than one assignment as I remember it.

2. Some of the assignments do come in multiple parts. There's one writing assignment that requires a video presentation that has 10 parts to it and those parts are aligned to getting your topic approved, writing a thesis statement, getting your first draft in.. final draft, presentation etc.

3. Grading times depend on where your stuff comes in as opposed to everyone elses stuff. It's one big bank of graders for each domain. If you're silly enough to submit your work a month before the end of the term, then you're going to see delays. As an example of the other side of the equation; I submitted my 120 page capstone at the midpoint of my last term and got it back in 2 days.

Another point on grading: Print out the grading rubric prior to beginning work on any assignment and follow it perfectly when doing your work. Don't give the graders a reason to send your stuff back for revision. Why? It's not what you think. They're not trying to extend your semesters, it's just that their workflow management tools weren't so hot when I went there. If you submitted something and it was graded, requesting revisions.. there'd be no guarantee that the original grader would be the one reviewing your revised document. I had three different graders review one of my ethics domains and I had to get my mentor involved to sort out the shenanigans. At the end of the day it was my fault as it was my first performance based assessment and I didn't read the rubrics well.

4. On the passing of exams for those domains that are done via objective exam: You can take a pre-exam at the beginning of the semester. If you score well enough your mentor will clear you to take the exam without doing any prep work. If you don't score well enough, your mentor will not clear you as it's likely you'll not pass.

In my case there were some areas where I took exams immediately due to doing well on the pre-tests (Sciences, Mathematics) and areas where I had to do the work (Organizational Behavior). Everyone is different.

There are domains that are not done via objective exam. In those cases you're going to need to heed the advice in point 2 and remember point 1. Personally, I finished in 2 years but came to the table with my MCSE which cleared year three. Therefore, I washed a year through early exam submission. Don't expect less than 2 years and aim for three.

Thanks,
ITJD

 

Edit to my above:

- Your time limit will depend entirely on what WGUs policy is for transfer credits. I just noticed your academic credentials in sig. You may have already tested out of a few domains.

 

Marianne:
ITJD explained much of this well. Let me add a bit:
There may be some general ed assignments that would be close to "busy work", but in reality, most of the "busy work" falls into two key areas: (1) the EWB introduction course, (2) the courses of study. The courses of study are supposed to prepare you for whatever exam/competency assessment you will take, but if you know the material (or have solid resources handy) you may not spend much time with the COS and its readings/exercises.

TaskStream, the paper grading system, continues to improve. While you occasionally still hear horror stories, I hear more positive ones lately-- sometimes papers get turned around from grading in as little as two hours! I would just plan to submit your best work as early as you can, and have something else ready to study while you're waiting for TaskStream. My personal experience with TaskStream has varied from about eight hours to four days for turnarounds, but I've usually had something else going to keep me occupied during the wait.

 

Am I the only one who is slightly offended by people considering work done in pursuit of a degree "busy work"?

Like getting a degree is supposed to be so simple we can just start collecting them trivially.

I'm over it but it's not the first time I've seen that stance taken on the forums.

 

I think it's a matter of semantics.

As most people use the phrase, "busy work" refers to filler activity that has little value to the pursuit at hand (e.g. distance learning). In the context of what the OP was referring to, "busy work" is that which has little educational value and serves to pass time within a schedule.

There's relatively little such filler in WGU's programs, which is one of the things that makes it highly appealing to many degree pursuers. However, there's some of this kind of filler in nearly every college program, and some of the value may be in the eyes of the beholder as well. I personally didn't find EWB to have that much value, but for others who've never taken a distance learning course it might be critical.

 

Thanks for the great feedback. I'm all for working for the degree. When I indicated "busy work" in my original post, I was referring to discussion board writings and writing papers for no real value other than to produce a paper to take up time in the course. At this point, honestly I'm looking for a program that will allow me to test out of the subjects I already know well and accept my transfer credits so I can just focus the courses that I do need, mainly just the IT based courses. I just don't want to waste time and money repeating what I have already done. I have been writing papers on an endless stream since I went back to school 2.5 years ago. Honestly, I understood it in the early classes to prove and improve my writing skills, but at this point, I'm tired of papers, especially since so many seem to be done just to fill up time in the course and have something to show an auditor as proof of work in the course without increasing the learning curve. Give me exams any day! I guess I'm just frustrated because I can't get the same answer from anyone that I talk to at WGU and I worry about wasting time and money.

 

Noted.

You're going to have a hard time getting anyone to commit to anything on the record as it pertains to course credit when speaking to admissions. They can't be certain until your credit evaluation happens and that only occurs when they have your transcripts as part of intake. Other schools are the same way.

So if you're into WGU and think the program fits, do what you're doing to allay fears and jump in. I may be joining you as a returning grad in a few months lol.

IT

 

I'll second ITJD. If you like WGU, dive in.

Transfer credit aside, the enrollment department @ WGU is notorious for not handling questions well. Don't let that deter you-- if you sign on, the rest of your experience should be MUCH smoother than all that.

 

Thanks for that! I really haven't found much to feel secure about with the "sales counselor" admission person. I have applied and have my transcripts enroute. I have to do some 2 hour admission exam, which seems silly for someone who has just completed 3 degrees via DL and is about to finish a 4 all in 3 years! She said I had no choice, everyone has to do it to make sure I'm a good fit for WGU...really? I also have been teaching DL classes at the college level for 6 years, go figure!

 

Yes, everyone takes that test. I don't recall it being two hours, though. It's probably going to be basic high school math/English. Fairly straightforward-- shouldn't need much more from you other than a quiet place to focus.

Unfortunately, yes, WGU has to do some screening. In lieu of making you take onerous placement exams like the SAT, they have to make sure you somehow didn't bluff your way past all the other classes you took. Just consider it part of demonstrating competency.

 

Be proud of your accomplishments but don't be brazen about it. There's plenty bad to say about finishing so much in so little an amount of time and it all has to do with questioning the schools you've earned it from in so little time. Most places won't "get it" and most quality schools won't "like it."

Am I correct that you've taught college level courses for six years and gotten your degrees over the last three years? Another red flag for an admissions team.

Sorry for being such a tool. There's a tone to the thread that's not sit well with me since post one, though to be fair, I don't really matter.