Student Mentor

The Student Mentor is what you would traditionally think of as a faculty adviser.  They know your course of study inside and out, they help you plan your courses, are a resource for all things WGU, a cheerleader/motivator and problem solver.  When getting started you arrange phone calls with them weekly and as you get further along you come to an understanding on how often and in which methods you will generally communicate.

My Student Mentor (we'll call her "Judy") is a very nice person.  She has an MBA in Business Intelligence and Analytics Management.  Judy's office hours are kind of odd, she starts at about 4:30 in the morning until about 9:00pm, with a few long breaks during the day.

WGU has an online tool for scheduling time with your mentor.  I have found that in scheduling calls with Judy on short notice, only the crazy hours are available, I've had 2 calls around 5:30am so far.  If I book an appointment further out, there is a greater variety of acceptable times.  Their appointment system can import your appointment into your mail/calendar software, sends reminder emails and text messages.

So far Judy is prompt in answering my questions and activating different parts of my courses.  It's nice to know that my guide throughout this process is a working mother with an advanced degree in an area of study similar to mine.  It's early, but she seems to know the degree program very well.

Hopefully she sticks around for the duration.

Degree Plan

It's official.  I have a plan for all of my "free time" the next 3-3.5 years of my life.  It's called a WGU Degree Plan.

It is pre-populated with a standard course plan for my degree program minus the accepted transfer credits.  I am able to manipulate the order of the courses and assign a target date range for each course.  My first task was to choose the first 12 credits (but not more than 15) for my first term, set dates for each course and then have my degree plan approved by my mentor.  Then on July 1st, I had to select each course on my first term and enroll in them.

Now my first 4 courses are available to view.  On each course is a button for "Course Material" and once that button is selected you're locked into the content and exam for that course at that time.  I can hit the button on all 4 courses and study concurrently if I wish, or just work on the courses one at a time.

I am hoping to complete 6 courses in the first term, but since that's 21 credits, I was only allowed by my mentor to enroll in 15 (4 courses).  Once I complete those 4 courses, if there is still time in my term I can enroll in one additional course at a time apparently until I reach the 20th of the last month of my term, a new course cannot be activated in the last 10-11 days of a term.

My first 4 courses are Spreadsheets, Intro to IT, IT Foundations and IT Applications.  I hope to also add English Composition and Critical Thinking and Logic.  We'll see how I do.

Orientation Schmorientation

It's time to get oriented!  Full disclosure, I historically have little patience for mundane tasks.  I admit it's a personality glitch.  In the case of orientation, all the info presented I anticipated to be things I already knew from my proactive research, but I do understand function of a "required for all" orientation.

My orientation was turned on Friday morning, the 15th of the month prior to my start date.  I was so excited to dive in but dreading the hours of boring videos.  It was supposed to take an estimated 6-8 hours.  It took me 5 hours to complete, 6:30-11:30pm.  You don't have to do it all in one sitting.  It will save your place wherever you stop and there isn't a "save my place" button or anything, you can just X out.

For those wondering, it was divided into 9 modules.  The first 7 were WGU general orientation, how to find things on the website, how to modify your Degree Plan, good study habits, resources, and where to turn for help.  The 8th was program specific, in my case, about the college of IT.  I would've liked more specific info on the college, staff bios, demographic makeup of the student body, job outlook, etc.  It was pretty basic mostly covering things I already knew from my research before and during the application process.  The 9th was a wrap up.  There were some short answer and some multiple choice quizzes over the content along the way along with some "self discovery" activities.

At any rate, I'm glad it's over.  Hopefully I'll be assigned my program adviser soon so we can set my degree plan.  I'm anxious to tweak the pre-populated one that automatically appeared in my student portal.

I was notified this morning that my "Student Success Kit" shipped.  More on that when it arrives.