Intake Interview

The Intake Interview was mostly a re-hash of what we've already covered by phone or e-mail.

The first two weeks will be a intro to WGU (I guess to make sure I can use the web site, et al -which I've already been poking around).

I am going to start on July 1st, 2007 - 1/2 of the tuition needs to be paid by June 25th.

LMC got the Transcript in today - so it should take about a week to figure out what is going to transfer. One thing that could really put a snag in this is if a lot doesn't transfer. I don't have a lot of interest in re-taking the first two years of college, as I've already done that.

Exam Graded - Passed!

That was quick. The exam must have been auto-graded (at least everything but the Essay). Got a "Congrats" e-mail, saying "Congratulations! The Admissions Committee of Western Governors University (WGU) is delighted to notify you of your provisional acceptance to WGU! ".

I now have to do a 20-30 mins "Intake Interview", finish getting them transcripts, and pay the tuition.

I have let Dave know I'd like to do it Thursday @ 5 PM EDT.

Going to follow up with LMC if I don't hear anything by tomorrow.

The only big question I have at this point is how much of my past class work will apply - I really want to just do the last two years (rather not take English Lit/History/etc yet again)

Completed Exam

Finished up the exams tonight. There were three:

- Academic Skills Test (English Comp, basic vocabulary, basic math, a little more advanced math)
- WGU Essay Exam (Write a essay, I assume the topic changes for each person).
- WGU Readiness Inventory (Do you have computer? How advanced a user are you, et al)

I found the Essay to be fun and the Readiness a bit silly - But I'm sure some people are not set up as well as I am (I telecommute 100%, and have done so for the last six years, so I'm pretty set...)

The Skills test was ok. Struggled a bit with the match (100% forgot how to do slope calcs, so had to do it the hard way. FUN!)

WSU Blogging

Asked Dave about blogging about my WSU experience - he said "No, there are no restrictions on blogging that I’m aware of. Obviously if you were posting intellectual property or copyrighted material and etc in its entirety that would be different, but a blog would be fine".

So should be in good shape - will probably make sure I don't talk about specific class assignments (keep it general).

Exam

The FSU transcript went out this morning. The Andrews one should be going out by tomorrow. Have not heard back from LMC.

Dave sent me a link to the exam - will be doing that in a bit (said I need 2 hours of uninterrupted time, which should be interesting.... maybe 3 AM? :)

Transcripts

Sent transcripts from FSU (Ferris State), LMC (Lake Shore) and Andrews U. FSU was the easiest, as it was all on-line. LMC was the most annoying, as they SECURED the PDF, so I couldn't just type the fields in. I ended up having to print it, then scan it, THEN type in the info into a new PDF. Oh well :)

Should take a week or two, from what the various schools said. FSU is the big one (The other two were just a few classes).

WGU Blogs?

Does anyone know of any other bloggers out there talking about WGU? That is, actual students blogging about what it's like? I havent' found any, which is a suprise, considering it's a on-line U.

Got app

I got the app in the mail today - was kinda suprised it wasn't by e-mail (maybe missed it on the web site).

Submitted my Application

So, after thinking about this a bit, I've decided to give it a try!

The big thing that won me over is I don't have to choose how many classes I will take in a 6 month period. I pay a flat amount for the 6 months - and then can take and finish as many classes as possible. So I could choose to do 3 classes, finish them in a two months, and take another 2. Or take 6 months to do the 2. Whatever it takes.

As I REALLY hope I'll be able to test out of a majority of the programming classes with some basic work (need to review Java), this means I might able to complete this FAST.

So, I'm waiting to hear back on the next step. Something about Readiness Assessment (which will likely be annoying as I haven't had to do even basic algebra in umm..... 20 years? Wow!), and then pick when to start and pay.

Should be interesting to see how this goes!

Start

So I had a talk with Dave from WGU about enrolling. We've exchanged a few e-mails with my general questions, and he gave me a call this afternoon.

I'm in a odd situation here - I want to get my MBA, but never finished my bachelors. I had about 2.5 years of it, but burned out. Took a year off, started back up again - but then had a great offer for a job programming. I ended up taking it.

While I don't' regret doing that, I'm now stuck having to get the bachelors so I can move on to higher education. I have around 20 years of software dev - everything including just straight writing code, leading teams, leading multiple teams, training people, design, architecture, starting and running a software company, etc.

Most of my past credits move will over to fill the underclass work - so most of this degree will be learning how to program. Something I kinda know how to do.

The upside to all of this is the way WGU works. I could in theory finish this VERY fast, as I just need to, for the most part, take a test to prove I know the subject material. It's all in Java, which is annoying, as I've been doing C++ since the early 90's, and C#/VB.NET the last few years. If it was in either of those I could probably pass most of the straight programming tests cold. :)


Anyway, going to think about it a bit more, see what happens.