Western Governors University Reviews of Bachelor's in Software Engineering

Western Governors University provided a high-quality education. All exams were proctored and all papers were checked for plagiarism. They are fully accredited and their School of IT is ranked #7 in the country. For many classes, course instructors were available to answer questions on weekends and at night. Students have a lot of flexibility regarding when they do their school work, but must complete a full time course load. I was able to earn a bachelor's degree in software development without going... Read More into debt, because WGU's model allowed me to work full time while I earned my degree.

WGU is great, you truly go at your own pace. Every office I've had to contact responds within a day or two, and the instructors are KNOWLEDGEABLE experienced professionals to say the least. Arguably more accessible than my professors in another University I physically attended (office hours being 3 hours 2 days a week). Your education is your responsibility and this school makes you own it. This is how you grow as a lifelong student and professional. If you want to be hand held and things done for... Read More you and achieve grades for just attending class, go somewhere else. In order to graduate you have to know your stuff. Your "mentor" motivates you and adds your class, your instructor has an accessible calendar for you to schedule time with them every day often within a 12 hour window where you can schedule up to 1.5 hours with them to discuss material. Don't expect to be spoon-fed, you do the work but hey, you actually EARN your degree here.

Many persons to whom I speak worry about WGU being a grift; however, it is ACTUALLY brick-and-mortar schools that are the grift these days. If you have looked at brick-and-mortar school's tuition rates lately, they are INSANE and out-of-control and that doesn't even include the $3,000 per semester they want to charge you just for the campus meal plan which is just a cafeteria, and 50+% of the time you get a terrible instructor who either doesn't know the subject or doesn't know how to teach students... Read More in an effective manner. For a fraction of the price, you can enter WGU's mostly self-study program and get the exact same degree. A Bachelor's degree alone does not guarantee success in your chosen field (certifications and experience are more important); however, it does get you that check mark from the Human Resources department which gives you opportunities to impress the persons in charge that actually make the hiring decisions. Why spend $150K+ at a brick-and-mortar school to obtain this check mark when you can spend $10K-15K for it as WGU? What do you really get for all that extra money? The ability to say you graduated from a University with a big league football team? No thank you. I could not care less about a University's sports teams, and I certainly don't want to pay an extra $100K+ in tuition and fees to support them.

This school is a joke. I'm into my third, THIRD six month semester and I haven't done ANY programming. Instead, I'm reading a "history" text full of flatly incorrect information, a math class that does not contain any actual math, and how to troubleshoot printers and low level networking devices. So far, I have not learned one single thing that is in any way relevant to software. As if that weren't enough, most of the text you have to read is abysmal. One seemed to be a bunch of student papers copy... Read More pasted together, another is obviously written in another language and translated by a third party, and many of the test questions are either poorly written or just plain wrong. All of the courses are through random first-party providers like uCertify. To call these services broken is being generous. Pages will randomly refuse to render, or crash, or will log you out completely if you dare to try going back a page. Some of them track how long it takes you to read the text and punish you if you don't meet their arbitrary numbers. Numbers like five minutes for a single three line paragraph. My advisor enrolled me in the second part of a two part course before the first, and because I couldn't pass I was in danger of losing my financial aid, and it was clearly all my fault. He never said a word, and I didn't even know about this situation until he "retired" and the new advisor they assigned told me. So far, the most positive experience I've had with this school has been enrollment. Literally every experience since then has been horrendous. I deeply regret signing up here. I wish I could leave, but they've structured the program so that you can't transfer out. I have to either stay and spend further thousands on irrelevant nonsense courses designed only to pad my tuition fees, or cut my losses and leave with 10k in debt and nothing to show for it. DO NOT ENROLL HERE.

Do your homework before going to WGU. Like most colleges, it's great for some people, and a very poor choice for others. If you're a working adult with the following, WGU is probably an excellent choice for you: 1. Industry knowledge & experience 2. The ability to complete work in a timely manner while managing your own schedule 3. A need to quickly prove what you know and learn what you don't 4. A strong desire to not invest 4 years and 6 figures into a Bachelor's degree 5. Some college credit or... Read More an AS, but no Bachelor's degree 6. The ability to learn and work independently. WGU is NOT a good choice for you if: You have no industry experience.This is especially true of the BSITM. Do not enroll in the BSITM program if you do not have IT experience and certifications. "IT Manager" is not an entry-level job for new grads, and a Bachelor's degree is not a Fast Pass to a career in management. You choose a college or career without doing research. (Seriously, most of the complaints here are about things that are on WGU's website. The fee structure and grading system aren't secrets.) You need a lot of hand-holding and supervision. You will have course mentors and student mentors, but assignments don't have due dates, and no one is going to stand over you and make you do the work. You're an 18 year old prodigy who wants to do academic research. This isn't Harvard or MIT, and it isn't meant to be - it's basically an online state school for working adults.

I'm a self taught computer programmer, and there were only a few times I "needed" a degree in life. One of those times was when Google turned me down in the early 1990's (pre-IPO) because I didn't have a degree.... I should have learned my lesson then. I was also turned down for a CTO position because of the lack of a degree... therefore, I decided to get my act together and knock out my bachelors. I figured this can't be that hard, because I've been a computer software engineer for years. Well,... Read More the truth is that half of the classes were a piece of cake based on my prior life experience, and the other half were exceptionally challenging. As someone who was directly responsible for making hiring decisions I gave very little weight to online degrees, until now. WGU has completely changed my mind about the potential of getting a good education from an online university. I completely and wholeheartedly recommend WGU for **highly** motivated self learners.