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I'll repost my WGU experience from another comment: I dropped out of traditional college. Last class I remember they were talking about what a GET and POST req

I'll repost my WGU experience from another comment: I dropped out of traditional college. Last class I remember they were talking about what a GET and POST request were. I had been a professional web developer for years at that point. I felt it was a waste of time. In WGU I had a similar easy class, stuff that was "way below me". Not to worry, I passed the class in a day and stopped worrying about wasted time. I recently did a C++ assignment that was filled with artificial requirements making it artificially difficult, yet I learned some things about pointers and figured out the basics of CMake for the first time. Useful stuff. Now I'm doing a similar assignment with Java. I knew I would have to set aside my distaste for things like Java (gross!), and with that mindset things aren't so bad. I'm actually enjoying JavaFX. WGU's calculus class was harder than calc 1 at my brick and mortar university, but easier than calc 2. Once again, I knew most of the material and passed after only a few weeks of casual review. I also found a calculus text book I personally like (and will happily refer to again in the future), rather that just using whatever the department chose. I do agree that a CS degree doesn't teach as much as it sometimes gets credit for. I do believe WGU's CS degree is as good as many brick and mortar CS degrees, but with minimal "bullshit", though there is still some.

jimbokun 6y ago
From your comments and the article, seems like the WGU model could completely disrupt the normal 4 year university experience, for self motivated learners. Of course, if the goal is 4 years of fun social life and putting off "adult" responsibilities, the WGU approach is counter productive. But for people who want the benefit of a degree as an employment credential, looks like this is the fastest and cheapest way to attain it, and I don't think many other existing four year colleges are prepared to compete with this model. Their cost structure doesn't allow it.
- Mandatum 6y ago
  I think you'll enjoy this: https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/speedrunning-college-my-plan-to-get-a-bachelors-degree-within-a-year-abe741c4c8bb https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/speedrunning-college-my... There's actually a bit of a college speed running community.
- dumpHero2 6y ago
  Considering that most of my social life (in late 20s) is made of people I met and worked with in bachelors and grad school, I am really unsure about this approach. Apart from the social factor, I was also got immense support and motivation from my peers. Given the emotional/social support a brick and mortar education institute gives, their graduates will fare better at jobs.
- rualca 6y ago
  > From your comments and the article, seems like the WGU model could completely disrupt the normal 4 year university experience, for self motivated learners. I don't agree at all. The "normal" university experience is designed around the assumption that the student is not familiar with the subject, and thus they specify a path comprised of a combination of lessons and assignments that allows everyone to get up to speed on a topic and share a common base level of all the fundamentals at a given stage. The OP's comments mention nothing of the sort. They show that, even though the student lacked some fundamentals, the preliminary work already had covered most of the topics. Thus OP's story is one mostly about getting a certification instead of actually learning something new. It involves learning stuff at their own pace instead of being forced to ramp um on a time budget with hard constraints on where the acceptable speed of growth must be. We should not confuse the two, and we should certainly not mistake being able to pass a certification as a reflexion of intelligence or capability. The challenge of getting from cluelessness to have a solid command of the fundamentals of a topic in less than 4 months is incomparably higher than just casually cruising on a topic for 10 years.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  If the goal is employment, a lot of the times an internship is becoming expected. This is easier to secure at a larger school, where recruiters visit to make face time on campus.
Scarbutt 6y ago
Can you please share the name of Calculus textbook?

jimbokun 6y ago

From your comments and the article, seems like the WGU model could completely disrupt the normal 4 year university experience, for self motivated learners. Of course, if the goal is 4 years of fun social life and putting off "adult" responsibilities, the WGU approach is counter productive. But for people who want the benefit of a degree as an employment credential, looks like this is the fastest and cheapest way to attain it, and I don't think many other existing four year colleges are prepared to compete with this model. Their cost structure doesn't allow it.

Mandatum 6y ago
I think you'll enjoy this: https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/speedrunning-college-my-plan-to-get-a-bachelors-degree-within-a-year-abe741c4c8bb https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/speedrunning-college-my... There's actually a bit of a college speed running community.
dumpHero2 6y ago
Considering that most of my social life (in late 20s) is made of people I met and worked with in bachelors and grad school, I am really unsure about this approach. Apart from the social factor, I was also got immense support and motivation from my peers. Given the emotional/social support a brick and mortar education institute gives, their graduates will fare better at jobs.
rualca 6y ago
> From your comments and the article, seems like the WGU model could completely disrupt the normal 4 year university experience, for self motivated learners. I don't agree at all. The "normal" university experience is designed around the assumption that the student is not familiar with the subject, and thus they specify a path comprised of a combination of lessons and assignments that allows everyone to get up to speed on a topic and share a common base level of all the fundamentals at a given stage. The OP's comments mention nothing of the sort. They show that, even though the student lacked some fundamentals, the preliminary work already had covered most of the topics. Thus OP's story is one mostly about getting a certification instead of actually learning something new. It involves learning stuff at their own pace instead of being forced to ramp um on a time budget with hard constraints on where the acceptable speed of growth must be. We should not confuse the two, and we should certainly not mistake being able to pass a certification as a reflexion of intelligence or capability. The challenge of getting from cluelessness to have a solid command of the fundamentals of a topic in less than 4 months is incomparably higher than just casually cruising on a topic for 10 years.
wasdfff 6y ago
If the goal is employment, a lot of the times an internship is becoming expected. This is easier to secure at a larger school, where recruiters visit to make face time on campus.

Scarbutt 6y ago

Can you please share the name of Calculus textbook?