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I'm glad to see others attending WGU. I worked in the industry for a little while, but I couldn't take web dev any longer and decided to go back to school. I'v
by fayten 6y ago
I'm glad to see others attending WGU. I worked in the industry for a little while, but I couldn't take web dev any longer and decided to go back to school.
I've enjoyed the CS program quite a bit, especially the self-pacing. I have been going at a much slower pace than you have, but I hope to finish up in the next 3 months. For someone new to CS I still think WGU is a good school if you are self-motivated. A standard class is expected to last 8-12 weeks, but they take the full 6 months if needed. Some of the intro classes are very short and can be done within a day or 2. Some classes have cohorts which are nice and instructors will have webinars to go over things in the class.
I had a lot of fun with the later project courses giving me a chance to build out some neat JavaFX and Tkinter applications. A lot of students get crushed by Discrete Math 1 and 2, but it's just one of those classes you need to practice with paper and pencil at. I also like that you are open to using other material to learn the subject matter. For the operating system class, I worked on Georgia Tech's Intro to operating systems class on Udacity and learned everything I needed for the test. The school also provides a Pluralsight subscription so, you can benefit from the excellent classes there as well. There is also a subreddit where students discuss courses and their strategies for passing them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU_CompSci/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU_CompSci/
I can see the program being brutal for people who cannot keep themselves on track due to lack of deadlines though. You do have an advisor that follows you through the whole program that communicates with you every week. If you do struggle with deadlines, let them know and they can help you strategize and keep you on track.
Lastly, I would like to note that the capstone does force the student down the path of a Data analysis/AI application. As someone that has little to no interest in AI, I was pretty bummed that it wasn't more open-ended. These things change though, so it might be different in the future.