Introduction / WGU Enrollment

As I begin wrapping up my first term at WGU, I have decided to put together this dual purpose blog. I intend to use this as both a progression report for self-motivation and a course review with tips on the methods I used to pass each class. This information is primarily focused towards the I.T. degrees but the enrollment process and general education courses should be about the same for the other fields.


I enrolled in the B.S.: I.T. Network Design & Management program in June 2011. My initial plan was completion of my A.A.S.: Network Security before enrollment but a major work opportunity requiring relocation presented itself and I had to withdraw from the A.A.S. program with only 7 courses remaining. With non-resident tuition being so expensive in NY, I decided to just transfer what I had into WGU and not complete the A.A.S.

I will start off by saying that the enrollment process is not where WGU shines. For those of you who are starting this process, don't let it prevent you from pursuing an education here. I don't think it was too bad for my enrollment, you just feel a bit like another number on a big list. Having spent 10 years in the military, I was already used to this treatment.

Here are a few highlights of the process:

• Application Fee ($65):  GET THIS WAVED! Any current WGU student can get this fee waved for you. Contact me if you need a referral.
  
• Prerequisites:  If you do not have at least an associates in an IT degree program, you must have either 3 years of IT work experience or an IT certification. I highly recommend going the certification route. Just be sure to pick one in your degree program so that effort will be spent completing an extra course. CompTIA exams are fairly easy and material is easy to acquire but they are also one of the most expensive. CIW exams are both cheap and pretty easy but study material is rather limited.
  
  For in-depth information on IT certifications, check out TechExams. They have a very large and helpful community, many of which are also WGU students.
  
• Enrollment Councilor: Will likely forget who you are immediately following each call. This office seems to be short staffed so each councilor deals with a very large amount of applicants. You may have to send a couple of follow-up emails if you need something from them. Fortunately, these are not the same individuals who will be mentoring you after enrollment.
  
• Transcript Review: I found WGU to be very generous with this. However, all transcript reviews will be unique to each student. Just remember, you can only go through this process one time. If you are currently working on a certification or finishing up your last classes at your current college, wait until they are on your transcript before sending them to WGU.
  
  Nearly all of the courses I completed towards my A.A.S. were transferred in. I also transferred in a leadership course from my military transcripts along with two certifications; CompTIA Security+ and Microsoft MCTS:70-620 Vista Client (filled 70-680 Win7 requirement).
  
  Below were the general education classes that I would need to complete at WGU following the transcript review (once again, every students transcript evaluation will be unique). I will go into a more thorough review of each of these courses in later posts:
  
• INC1/INT1: Science - My associates did not require natural science courses.
• BAC1/GAC1/HHT1/QLT1: Math - I did not have any math courses to transfer in.
• LAT1: English (Research Paper) - My English Comp I was applied to another English course.
• IWT1: Humanities - My Intro to Theatre course met requirements for the objective portion, not the performance part (analysis paper and PowerPoint presentation).
• CLC1: Critical Thinking
• ORC1/MGC1: Management courses
  
• Pre-enrollment assessments: For those of you just coming out of an Associates program, this will probably be a breeze. This is all high school level material. The multiple choice and essay assessments for English were pretty straight forward. I did struggle with the Math exam though (12 years since my last math class) but Google refreshed my memory ;) 
  
  I was hearing a lot of talk about a second set of these assessments in EWB (more on this course later) but I never encountered them. I'd like to think that they didn't find it necessary because of the stellar performance on the pre-enrollment assessments :)
  
• Tution Payment: I am using Chapter 30 MGIB. I will post details on that for any military veterans. Because Ch 30 payments don't begin until after enrollment, I also applied for a Federal Direct student loan through the Financial Aid office. WGU made this process very easy. They provide a task list and update the statuses as they receive the necessary documentation. If you plan to do this, get an early start on your paperwork to ensure everything is approved on time or it may delay your start date.

After that, you are all set to begin at WGU. I will go over the next steps in a future post. Best of luck to those of you who are currently enrolling and to those who are currently enrolled!