Karl,
I am glad you PMed me. I like to share my experience with WGU.
I started WGU with an associates degree in veterinary technology from a community college. They were able to take that degree and waive all the first two year general education requirements. I still had to take the lower level IT requirements. I had a full time job at the time, working third shift... three long shifts a week. I had a lot of time to dedicate to my studies.
I'll be honest. I had a mixture of working hard and slacking off. Everything is self paced, and they only "make" you get 12 or 15 credits a semester, which lasts for a full 6 months. That would have been easy street.
I worked hard and got everything done in 4 semesters. Two years to get all the upper level requirements, and the IT lower level requirements. There are some really easy classes, like their management class, the critical thinking class, the education without bounds class, and any other general ed requirement. Most of the classes you take there are proctored exams. Some, however, have real deliverable work. This work gets uploaded to a system and someone picks it up and grades it. As long as you follow the rubrics (I recommend adding helpful titles to things so the graders have no doubt), you pass the class.
The best part of WGU is the certifications. I have something like 11 industry standard certifications in topics ranging from desktop support, project management, sql, javascript, perl, networking, security and java... there is a caveat to this. DO NOT put all your certifications on your resume. Only put the certifications that apply to the type of job you're applying for. I applied for a server support job, and I got this question "I see you've gotten a few hardware and security certifications, but why did you start getting programming certifications?" The truth is I wanted a job, but they look at it funny.
I was able, in an average semester, to crank out about 20-24 credits. There were times I felt rushed, but also times I slacked off. I was unemployed one semester and I was able to get 34 credits. I didn't really follow the suggested learning guide because it was too slow for me... I kindof got an idea of what I needed to do/learn and just did it.
There are things people complain about in the reviews. Those things are mostly legit. No one is going to hold your hand. You get a mentor whose job it is to call you every week, then every other week after a while. You need to take their call. They don't really know a ton about the subject matter, but they are REALLY helpful. They are also there to get you signed up for classes and help you keep track of your goals for graduation. My guy was Marcos Giraldi. Best mentor ever. You can email the course professor if you have an issue or chat in the forums. I found the forums to be filled with people I was not interested in interacting with. The JavaRanch forums were my saving grace during my Java, sql, perl, and JavaScript classes. There are also really few classes who require real time interaction, unlike Regis, Walden, Phoenix, etc where they require "x amount of forum interaction per week, stuff due by x day, etc." Everything is done, or not done, on your time.
As for signing up for classes, they let you sign up for 12 credits every term, then once you finish, they add one at a time. Adding a class takes a bit of time because it takes a couple days to get the materials to you. The materials are like gold and INCLUDED in your tuition. They typically have practice exams for the certification exams that are pretty good at determining how well you'll do. If you're interested in spending a bit of cash, you can always buy more materials, but mostly for what I took I was able to get by with their materials. I think I bought extra stuff a couple times, and I can't tell you how good Enthuware is for
SCJP study.
You cannot beat the price of WGU. It's completely accredited. You get as many credits as you can take in one semester for a flat rate. No one does that.
There is something to be said though about Jeanne saying "Janeice knows stuff." Or whatever she said in paraphrase. I know stuff because I WANTED to learn the material. I didn't just do it so I could get a certification and then instantly forget (although I did a bit of that for the Project+ and Perl classes). I knew I wanted a job as a Java developer, and I did what it took to follow that course. I wanted to learn more stuff than what was required because I had the real desire to understand it. There is a way to do a "bare minimum" and get a degree without learning much. I don't recommend it.
WGU was hard work, but worth it. The only reason I didn't do it for my current MS program is they don't offer a software engineering graduate degree. Regis University has a program where you get your MS and BS at the same time with some sort of credit reduction. You might look into that if you don't car that you have a schedule.
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