My Thoughts on WGU and Online Schools

TLDR: If you don’t care about anything other than hours, costs, difficulty, and remarks on specific classes jump to the stats section.

Origin and Motivation

I started my career shortly after the Dot-com bubble burst. Despite the crash, it wasn’t particularly challenging to land a software role. I had just moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah. The University was quite famous for computer scientists such as Ed Catmull, Alan Kay, Jim Clark, Ivan Sutherland, and many others. I was really excited to attend; I had spent the previous years adopting linux in the 90s and experimenting with computer graphics in OpenGL. This was a time where some of the best resources for learning were found on usenet, early open-source, manuals, and random gems like Beej’s Guide to Network Programming, not to mention following people like Carmack via a oddly named program “finger”. If you wanted to learn computer graphics this was one of the best places to be.

There wasn’t a lot of information to be found about these programs at that time. A lot of people didn’t have the internet in their homes in 2001. I didn’t have a mobile phone in my pocket either. It also turns out that college level math classes are pretty challenging, especially for a young and poorly disciplined student. There was no Khan Academy, LLMs, or YouTube videos to help you out. My excitement over attending the University quickly evaporated along with my savings. A few of my friends worked for a startup that needed more developers and I was able to land a job with them working on an international e-commerce site that used Macromedia Flash.

I took another job that had an hour commute. I was finishing my fourth term at school and I was miserable. I was already making just enough money to live on even though it wasn’t anything amazing like what I read about in the 90s. Between the commute, my lack of enjoyment of the first two years of classes, and the brutal hours of a startup I decided I was tired of school. I was more interested in my own projects and startups and my little free time I had I wanted to invest in building things I actually cared about, not more math. I didn’t re-enroll for Fall 2003.

As of 2025 I’m now midway through my career. I’ve worked for many companies including small startups, established large corporations, and freelancing. I’ve watched the rise of web, mobile, crypto, 3D, VR, NFTs, and now AI. Throughout this time I’ve been carefully following and watching the landscape of software. While I started my career in web I pivoted when the iPhone came out. Much later I returned to 3D to work on R&D and real-time avatars. VR hit the scene shortly after and before I knew it I was in South Korea talking with Samsung. NFTs briefly surged and that was the first tech I decided to hold off on jumping into, while I helped my company work on a few projects it wasn’t something I was particularly interested in and I was worried it was going to be short lived. I had been paying attention a bit to machine learning and watching some very interesting developments, especially in computer vision and Generative Adversarial Networks, GANs. I’ve taken a keen interest in emerging technology as a way to stay relevant in the industry.

I had always found programming pretty enjoyable but not the mathematics. I lead the development of several real-time avatar systems at Daz 3D. One of the more interesting things I’ve built was the tech behind auto fitting assets on to morphable characters. I had been trying to figure out how to make objects like clothing and hair adjust automatically across characters as they morphed from frail to muscular, children to adults, zombies, and more. The assets were never designed to work with these shapes, just the base figure. I stumbled upon a wonderful video by Daniel Shiffman about Gradient Descent. This was a pivotal moment for me where something clicked and I then struggled through a solution using some of the concepts behind local and global minima. I cobbled together a prototype that showed how we could deform items like clothing, glasses, props, and hair in real-time. This was incorporated into some artist tooling for MCS, a popular unity plugin. I later lead the development of our next iteration called Astra.

I felt like I was stumbling through some math that I barely understood to accomplish my goals. I decided to take a free course by Gilbert Strang on Linear Algebra. The class was incredibly challenging but very valuable. This was my first college class, albeit uncredited, since 2003. I realized a few things when I did this class.

1. It was challenging
2. I was more disciplined about learning
3. It was self-paced
4. It went deeper than I would have learned on my own

This was further solidified when I took a Udacity course in 2021 on Deep Learning that I really enjoyed. It was a great crash course that helped solidify the fact that online programs can be very well made and useful.

As the next few years passed I started to notice that there were new signs of another major tech bubble. I had some younger friends who recently had degrees in computer science mention they were having a difficult time landing a job. For a while it seemed a bit safer to be a senior developer even without a degree. Around 2023 I started thinking maybe it was a good idea to go back to school and finish my degree.

Online Schools

I work full-time and have a family, the idea of going back to a brick and mortar school during the day with my schedule seemed rather difficult. I have a very demanding job at a software company and frequently work overtime. While discussing options about schools my wife mentioned Western Governor’s University to me one evening. At first I was a bit skeptical as I wasn’t sure online schools had a good reputation or were properly accredited. I did more research and found out the school was accredited with the same body that does many of the schools in my area, including the University of Utah. WGU’s College of IT also became ABET Accredited in 2023. It’s affordable, it’s flexible, and if you’re motivated it can be done faster than traditional programs. The school lets you do classes as quickly as you can manage them. This was very interesting to me, as after doing other programs like Strang’s class on my own or a course on Udacity I found the flexibility to study whenever you wanted to and at whatever pace you felt necessary worked for me. I started to look into how I might do this.

I ended up consuming a lot of reviews about courses at WGU either on reddit.com, degreeforum.net, and youtube.com. However there was one particular site I happened upon by a person who did their degree incredibly quickly that was a bit intriguing. I ended up finding out about sophia.org and study.com which WGU allows some classes to transfer in. Both sophia and study have ACE accreditation for all or some of their classes. I ended up plotting out the classes that could be transferred in. My goal was try to get as much done as possible outside of WGU and then hopefully finish in 1 or 2 terms at WGU.

Sophia.org

I was able to get my feet wet at sophia.org. In February of 2024 I signed up for a 4 month account for $299 USD. The program lets you complete as many classes as you want as fast as you’d like. I ended up taking 15 classes over 6 months, which cost $497 USD in total. When I was in high school I took a class at my local community college during the summer. The classes at sophia felt pretty similar in difficulty but the scope was definitely a bit smaller.

Each class is it’s own unit and varies quite a bit in scope, quality, and difficulty. The platform is very simple to use and is a great option if the school you want to transfer into takes these credits. For the price it is amazing. The exams were not really proctored outside of a typing thing to try to catch people taking someone else’s exam but overall wasn’t what I would call a true proctored exam. I would say it’s mostly up to you to be honorable about this. Not all classes have exams, some are project based such as the Philosophy class which is essay based.

Study.com

After my last class at sophia was done I immediately started at study.com. In 2024, the price was $252.51 USD per month. Study takes a similar but slightly different approach to classes over Sophia. While you can take as many classes at whatever pace you want, you are given 2 credits per month for the exams. The exams, at the time that I did them, were proctored via a recorded video. You were given instructions on how to scan your room and desk, had to install a special browser, and the video was checked after you completed the exam (not during). Earlier this year they changed their pricing and they removed proctoring. I don’t really agree with removing the proctored exams. The classes were not super difficult and I feel it devalues the reputation of the programs. I am a bit torn on it overall. I ended up completing 7 classes at study.com and having to pay for a few extra exam credits as I exceeded my allotment each month. I spent $660.83 USD in total.

The classes at study.com were quite strange. They are basically a collection of mini modules that overlap between different classes. While the difficulty of these classes did go up slightly over sophia. Like sophia some but not all classes have exams. They did have a practice section you could use which mostly lined up, but not always, with material on the exams.

There was one standout class “Computer Science 306” which had you design a working ALU in Logisim. I thought the project was interesting and challenging enough for the course. This class was equivalent WGU for “Computer Architecture - C952” at WGU for those interesting at transfers.

Certs

I decided to get certified with the Scrum Alliance since this would transfer in for WGU’s “Software Engineering - D284”. I did a three day early morning course to avoid conflicts with work. After the class I took a non-proctored exam and became certified. It was very simple since I have a development background and have had to use Scrum in previous jobs. I have very mixed opinions about certifications and Scrum especially but I felt this was an easy way to get another course knocked out.

I had a Udacity cert but it wasn’t accepted into the program.

WGU Academy

I ended up taking an academy class which is like a mini one-off class at WGU. If you pass and then apply at WGU they take the transfer and refund your $99 USD payment. I did the Ethics in Technology class and found it had some issues that referenced material that was only available to full WGU students not Academy students. I was able to finish the class despite not having access to all the material though and it ended up not being a big deal. This was my first experience with WGU’s proctoring through ProctorU. I will say the proctoring isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. I don’t love it but it wasn’t obnoxious either and it’s just a necessary evil in my opinion.

If you are curious about what a class is like at WGU, I highly encourage you to take a WGU Academy class for one that would transfer into your major. This will give you a good feel for the class and the proctoring process. If you are unsure about the quality of content, this will help you make your decision. Considering it is only $99 USD that is refundable if you enroll, it’s very good way to answer your questions.

WGU

I was very eager to get started with WGU as I had heard rumors that the CS program was going to change. I spoke with an enrollment counselor a month prior to being ready to start asking if they had more information about the program changing but they didn’t. I thought they’d change the program at the start of 2025 so I decided to finish up the last classes on my list and then apply.

I formally applied and waited for my transfer evaluation to come back. In the middle of the process WGU announced they were making the change to the CS program and I got very nervous. I got a transfer evaluation back and one class was no longer on it. Not too big a deal, but then I got another evaluation sent to me and then another. It was quite frustrating watching classes I completed that were on the official “Transfer Pathways” fall off. Overall I ended up losing 5 classes in total due to the program switch. In addition WGU took zero of my University of Utah classes. That stung a bit. To their credit they do disclose that math based classes must have been completed in the previous five years. It was frustrating but I felt like I could still make it work.

I started my first full WGU course on December 1st, 2024. By April 29th, 2025 I finished the last class in their updated program “Computer Science Project Development with a Team - D687” with a month to spare. Midway through I was a bit concerned I might not finish in one term because I ended up becoming extremely busy with work but the desire to save on paying out another term was a huge motivation that kept me working towards finishing.

Total price for WGU came out to be $4,285 USD.

Costs vs Brick and Mortar

Since I had 2 years of classes at the University of Utah I did consider attending classes there and finishing my degree. I spoke to someone from the engineering school about finishing and they said they would accept most of my classes I did about 20 years prior. I would likely have needed 5 full-time semesters to finish. When I priced this out I was looking around $25,000 USD and taking about 2-3 years to finish. Current costs for a full 4 year program would be around north of $40k if you were starting from scratch.

Difficulty and Rigor

I think the CS program at WGU, overall, is sensibly adequate. It’s not likely to be as challenging as your premier states school, such as the University of Utah, but it is likely more challenging then your typical community college. There are some classes you have to do at WGU such as “Discrete Mathematics II - C960” that can be pretty challenging to complete. The final, in particular, may be difficult to finish in time and covers the same material that a brick and mortar school has. If you can pass the exam, and it is live proctored, you likely know the material. Some other classes have well designed and challenging projects like “Data Structures and Algorithms II - C950”.

WGU is a great school for people that are highly motivated, self directed, and have existing experience in their field of study. You will likely find that a few classes at WGU can be focused solely on the projects and completely ignore the material. If you read between the lines you can see that you can bypass much of the material that the project doesn’t cover. That said the classes have a lot of information and frequently choose good books as their basis for the course. The material, for the most part, is there if you want it. It’s up to you to decide if you need to study all of it or just accomplish your goal. WGU has no required quizzes, mid-terms, homework, etc. Class either have a single exam or one or more tasks to complete. This is unusual when comparing to a more traditional school. Even programs like Sophia, Study.com, Coursera, and other online learning portals typically have required quizzes (albeit with several or unlimited attempts).

I believe people that work at WGU are listening to people discussing the programs. I noticed the newer classes in my program had more projects then the older ones. What I would have liked to see is mixing some exams and projects into a course. It’s an either or situation, either a class has an exam or it is project based (with one or more projects to complete).

I’m not sure what others will say regarding this, but since I did two years of study at the University of Utah, there are classes I have done at both schools. Overall you will spend much more time per class at traditional schools then WGU. It’s up to you if that is a good thing or not. For myself since I’m almost 25 years into my career it’s definitely a benefit. I had previously taken classes like Computer Science I and II and Discrete Structures at the UofU. The material is roughly equivalent to what you learn at WGU albeit it’s taught differently and the amount of work you have to do is very different.

Some classes at Sophia, Study, or WGU I simply went as fast as I could and only did the quizzes, exams, projects that were necessary and ignored everything else. I was able to use my background as a software developer to complete some classes quickly. For classes I didn’t have much knowledge in, or felt I had gaps I took the time to cover the material. When you look online and see what others say some people spend a significant amount of time on a course that you might be able to breeze by in a few hours. In other cases you may be scratching your head wondering why you are spending more time than others on seemingly easy classes.

I did find some of the classes to be a bit more business or vocationally focused then I expected. A lot of what you learn in a computer science program tends to be a bit on the theory and academic side. There’s a lot of mathematical rigor in many programs. WGU sometimes leans a bit on the side away from theory for many classes. There are also a few gaps that I wish they would cover as foundations such as Linear Algebra. Overall it’s a decent blend and it never gets too much into the business side for classes.

How Well Prepared are Graduates of WGU BSCS?

Overall I think the program covers many of the same topics that most other institution would cover. Harder colleges typically will push more math into their programs such as requiring Calculus II or III. Many programs also include Linear Algebra as well. Discrete mathematics felt very similar to my courses at the University of Utah. You will definitely learn the foundations that other students gain from other schools. As far as how this prepares you to work in the field, it’s mixed. I think the primary issue with Computer Science, in general, is that it is a bit heavy on the math and theory and a bit removed from the actual real process that we do in software. WGU does try to push a bit on the practical side but I don’t know how effective this truly is. It’s possible that some schools have realized this gap and are now offering a degree in Software Engineering as alternatives that seem to focus a bit more on the development process and project management and a bit less on theory and math, however I haven’t taken one of these programs so I don’t want to misspeak about them.

As someone that does hire developers on a frequent basis I would say that WGU does check the box so-to-speak. It provides enough of the fundamentals without being too easy of a program. It is broad enough in it’s domain and does get a bit deep into some topics that I feel is valuable to both the employee and employer. All that said, like any other institution it won’t make you a good software developer. You will need to work on your own projects or have plenty of professional experience to really know what it takes to get real projects done in the wild. I think the one advantage, if this is important to you, of WGU over many other programs is that it will give you a broader sense of the business side of programming that many colleges don’t seem concerned to teach.

Masters Programs

For students interested in going into a masters program after getting their undergraduate degree I do feel WGU adequately prepares you for most graduate level programs. Specifically for the CS program the work you will do on proofs and recurrence relationships is particularly useful in future studies.

One note about pursuing a Masters that I didn’t consider at first. WGU does not have letter grades. If you get a transcript from them your GPA will interpreted as 3.0+. This can be a problem for some people looking to pursue a masters degree both due to a lack of the GPA on the official transcript and as some programs have higher GPA requirements for your undergrad. Make sure your do some research and you may want to contact the school you’re interested in before you start. The other part is you won’t make any real connections with professors at WGU and may lack letters of recommendations from your undergrad. To reiterate, my official transcript from WGU does not show any GPA on it. Your official transcript will also state the credit counts you earned in the actual program and what you transferred in. Lastly the total credits for the new CS program are listed as 117 credits when many programs have 120. You should be very careful about how you approach this if a Masters is what you’re going for. All that said you can reference WGU’s list they collect of where alumni pursue other graduate programs.

WGU recently opened up a Masters in Computer Science. I don’t have any information about the masters program at WGU but I would be very interested to hear about peoples’ experience at WGU’s MSCS program so feel free to get in touch if you have done this.

Whether you agree with college ranking systems or not they do play a role in life. While WGU is decent it does not appear on rankings, such as US News. It has been around for over 25 years and the enrollment rate is massive. As of August 6th, 2024 WGU has 340,000 alumni. There is a small stigma but I believe it will go away over time especially as more and more of your colleagues are from WGU. I hope to see it get ranked over time and be able to compete with more traditional schools. When looking at other options like Georgia Tech, University of Texas at Austin, University of Colorado Boulder, and others I ultimately decided having a ranked school was a small benefit but not my primary one.

If you’re curious I ended up choosing a program at the University of Colorado Boulder. I will admit that the number of hours I need to put into the program at Boulder is significantly higher than classes I did at WGU so far. The classes are a large step up from WGU’s in terms of difficulty as well such as the Data Structures and Algorithms series. I chose CU Boulder because I was personally looking for a further challenge while still having flexibility. The program has also been around a bit longer than WGU’s new CS masters. I imagine when students start completing the Masters of CS at WGU we’ll hear plenty about it and see how it compares to other programs like the famous Online Master of Science in Computer Science, OMSCS, at Georgia Tech. Lastly the program at Boulder has half of the program fixed, where you have no choice in classes, and half are electives, with a few restrictions. I was desperately craving this type of choice that is absent from WGU, though WGU does have some specialization paths that do change out a few courses.

Speedrunning / Rushing the Program

I did want to take some time to discuss something that I am a bit torn on. When you search for information about WGU you will come across many different people that have finished their degrees at incredibly fast paces. I think WGU could stand to increase some of the difficulty of their classes and add additional work that must be done. Some classes are incredibly trivial at the school, but this is true at many other schools. WGU is not unique in having freebie classes and weeder classes like any other institution. However, when you see people saying they finished the program in a few months or within a month it leaves some concerns with you. When you do a bit of digging, you will often see that these people typically have professional backgrounds in their field of study. In other cases they are working on the program full-time with few distractions. There is also a lot of “pre-studying” for many classes which is useful to save money but sometimes dishonest in terms of time spent on a course.

Cycling out old tasks at WGU so they are not the same tasks from years prior would help as well. Any school that uses old course material has this issue however. The more popular the program and class the more likely you will see answers, guides, and assistance for these classes online. I do not think it’s fair to single out WGU here, as this seems to be an issue with any wide spread program or Massive Open Online Course, MOOC.

Keep in mind that if you are not familiar with the material, have a family, a demanding job, or other responsibilities you are not likely to complete the program as quickly as some others. WGU officially states that the average time to earn a bachelor’s degree is 30 months or two and a half years; this is already shorter than the typical 4 year traditional program at other colleges.

Is WGU Worth It?

In short, yes. I dedicated a little over a year of my life outside of work and family and was able to finish my undergrad, essentially, from scratch. There were plenty of knowledge gaps I filled in that I never covered in my own learnings or through work. Some tasks were challenging, some of it was rewarding, some of it will be useful in my career. Considering that every year the percent of people obtaining degrees, by 8.9% each year, it may be likely to become more difficult over time to land a job without one.

Would You Recommend It?

I can only speak to the computer science side as that’s what I did. I don’t have knowledge about the other colleges or programs at WGU. I would recommend this path for people that are already working in the industry or have a background in software. If you are learning all of this from scratch I think it will take a good amount of time to get through and it may end up taking many terms to finish. If your employer is willing to pay for it, the cost may not be important to you. I also think you will end up with gaps that a more traditional program, due to it’s nature, might not have. Some people need that reinforcement, others don’t. Ultimately you have to make that judgement call yourself.

In the end every college, program, class, teacher, etc has pros and cons. Some are good and some are not. If you ask different people some will sing praises about one class where others will say it was awful about ANY class, program, or school. It’s difficult to draw accurate conclusions without knowing who you are or doing it yourself directly.

For those that are 5+ years into a software role without a degree, I highly recommend getting one from WGU. The tech market is very different from where it was when I first started my career in the early 2000s. Even if you are a senior dev it’s currently challenging to land a role and having a degree is something that things like Applicant Tracking Systems, ATS, may reject you without ever letting your resume land in the hiring manager’s inbox.

I have interviewed many people in my career. The only time I care about them having a degree is if they have little job experience. While I know others feel the same as I do, my experience dealing with HR is the opposite. HR seems keen on wanting to filter out as many candidates as possible where I would rather talk to someone and make a decision if they could adapt without matching the exact “specs” of a job. In many cases the HR department will be the first level of filtering for incoming candidates and it’s simply a fact of life. I feel like you will be at a significant disadvantage if you don’t have a degree now.

What is the Computer Science Program at WGU Like?

When I first was curious about WGU I tried finding any information I could about how the program is actually setup. I wanted to share some additional information about the program so others might be able to better make a decision.

It starts by you contacting them online and stating that you’re interested in attending. You complete some general information and are prompted to send in any transcripts, certifications, AP scores, etc that you might have. Some colleges have different requirements then others. The CS program requires that any mathematics classes must have been taken within the last 5 years of enrollment. I had previously completed AP Calc AB and BC with passing grades, and had also taken further calculus classes when I was at the University of Utah, but this was way past 5 years. I knew this coming in so I ended up doing a Calc 1 class at Sophia which was accepted when transferring in my classes. Even though I had completed many classes at that University of Utah WGU didn’t take anything other than 1 humanities class, which was later dropped when the program transitioned in the middle of my application. I’ve read from other students that WGU often does not take a lot of transfers from schools as well, and that was my experience. They do have “Pathway Agreements” for several institutions like Sophia, Study.com, Straighterline, and others. You can find more information at WGU Transfer Pathways. I will mention that you need be careful about this, as I had completed a lot of prep work to try to maximize my transfers into the program and the CS program switched in the middle of my application. I ended up losing credit for 5 classes I did.

Once you’re enrolled you have a basic orientation you must complete and then school will start on the 1st of the next month. You must pay your tuition about a week or two before this date however. You are given a Microsoft 365 account and email is handled with your newly given yourname@wgu.edu. Once the 1st rolls around you can immediately begin. You will be assigned a few classes in your first term. Each term is 6 months, or roughly 24 weeks. As you complete the classes you can accelerate and move other courses from future terms into your current one. Which classes you can do next, and how many you can accelerate at the same time is dependent both on the program and your program mentor. You are required to meet with your mentor around once a week on a call. I didn’t quite understand the point of this at first but I found it helpful every so often as I did have some questions that were a bit “meta” about the program that they were able to answer for me.

Every class has a course instructor assigned to you who you can reach out to if you need. Unfortunately I did not find this helpful. Each student’s experience is likely to be unique here as I’ve read that many people had really positive interactions with their instructors and others, like myself, did not. These instructors are not actually an instructor like a traditional professor or lecturer but should be able to answer questions about the class and do understand the material.

This is where classes at WGU greatly deviate from traditional programs. There are almost no lectures in the CS program. If there are any videos at all they are typically supplemental or done sporadically and on 3rd party platforms such as LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight, Udemy, and others. Your classes will all be unique in how they are setup and what materials and resources you use. Some classes, such as the math classes, use tools like zyBooks, which are basically interactive text books without videos. Despite what a lot of people say online these are not bad, some people just have a hard time learning math through text only. I found the interactive quizzes to be very good at reinforcing the learning and testing my ability to perform the calculations correctly. For more challenging material there are many great resources on YouTube and Khan Academy if you need these.

Your course list is fixed based on the degree program you have chosen. There are no electives to choose in your program. For me this was a negative as I wanted to make some choices about classes I was or wasn’t interested in, but in the end it wasn’t a deal breaker for myself.

For textbooks these will be a bit all over the place. Some classes you will reference none, and others you will read from one heavily, and again others you will bounce around with many textbook sections from a large collection of different books.

What I found the most irritating at WGU use of Open edX for courses in it’s entirety. This program, frankly, is awful at least in how it’s done or used at WGU. It frequently can not maintain basic things like if you completed reading a section or not. The material inside these seems disconnected and doesn’t follow a single cohesive flow. There is also a large push to discuss how this will help you in your career which wasn’t something I was interested in, though you can easily skip these sections. I would have much rather followed a textbook with supplemental resources then use the platform as is. You will also very frequently be referencing many different resources on many different vendors. While normally, I wouldn’t find this particularly difficult or bad, it makes searching through the course next to impossible. From DRM restrictive online text books, to video resources lacking proper transcript searches, to the lack of search inside it’s first party tooling… it makes it a challenge to find what you need and especially for the many citations you’re expected to have in your tasks.

Despite the above flaws the actual dashboard works well. The degree plan is nicely laid out, and works well. I didn’t really have any complaints about this other then frequently being kicked out due to session timeouts. This becomes an issue when you plan to spend hours or like having many tabs open with your references.

I mentioned earlier that every class has a singular exam or one or more tasks to complete. This system makes it extremely clear what is expected from you and you will know exactly what you need to do in order to complete the course. While this system does have a few flaws, see the rigor section above, it works well for the most part. For exams there is a practice assessment you must first complete that will then open up a proctored exam that actually counts towards your grade. The practice assessments are very close to the actual exam, though the questions are not identical. If you can pass the practice assessments with a decent margin you should feel fairly confident about the graded exam. I found this system excellent, and it’s quite similar Study.com. I will state that the final exam is typically slightly more difficult then the practices. You should also be careful if you end up studying using random quizlets from other students or instructors that those questions are typically from the practice exams and course optional quizzes so you shouldn’t just memorize these answers.

Classes that have tasks typically have between one to three of them. I saw that newer classes, like the Systems Thinking, or the last three AI classes in the CS program have more tasks on average than older classes. These tasks require you to read a rubric that tells you what you need to accomplish. This is not always straightforward, just because there is a rubric that tells you what you need to do and what is required doesn’t mean that it’s easily understandable. I was left scratching my head often trying to understand what they wanted me to do. For many projects this will involve you completing something, such as a coding project in addition to creating a writeup that details additional information about those rubric items. It can be, at times, deeply frustrating to do these tasks. They are sometimes very verbose in what they want you to do. I was often annoyed that I couldn’t “just do the work” but I had to show that the work was done in discrete steps that don’t necessarily flow well. As a developer I don’t often check in code until I know a specific portion of the code works. For many of these programming tasks at WGU you will be told to commit stuff that you can’t test. It’s fundamentally broken by design here. ALl that said the grading is extremely fair. You will often see online people saying “follow the rubric”, after a few classes this will start making sense because any deviation of what they are asking will get kicked back to you as you not completing a rubric item. It really does boil down to “follow the rubric”. You have no grade, there is no reason to “try harder” unless you want personal knowledge or satisfaction here.

There does not seem to be any practical or well defined limit with re-attempts of either exams or tasks. I have read, but I can’t confirm, that if you repeatedly fail either you will need to do remediation such as additional assignments, homework, reports, etc. I never failed an exam at WGU, and only had a few task attempts get kicked back once so I can’t speak to this. I’ve read that they have failed students for failing too many times, but I suspect this is more that the student can’t complete the program and less about the number of attempts they have. This greatly deviates from traditional institutions but I did find that things were less stressful because I knew there wasn’t as much at stake.

A huge benefit to the program at WGU is that everything is included. There are no additional fees, no extra books to purchase, no subscriptions you must buy, no 3rd party exam certifications you must account for. Even your diploma is mailed to you without paying any additional money. This was a huge difference from my experience at the University of Utah and at Study.com.

When you finish your last class at WGU you will schedule a call with your program mentor and then take a final survey. Upon completing this a review will be done at WGU to ensure you’re ready to graduate and then you’ll have your diploma sent to you in a few weeks. The process is incredibly smooth and they explain every step. With a few exceptions if you finish early you will not need to wait for your term to complete before you are awarded your diploma. I completed my term with a month to spare and had my diploma, in my hands, before the term had finished.

Proctored Exams

You might read that the proctoring is annoying for online programs. It can be, but my experience with them in general is it was fine. After completing both tasks based, PA, and exam based, OA classes at WGU I would definitely say I preferred the exams. I only had one annoying proctor in all of my exams and it wasn’t really that bad. If you’re in the CS program some exams are proctored through a different body then the rest, such as the ITIL exam. I ended up being cramped up in my bathroom with my back against the door as the requirements for taking the exam are, I would say, unnecessarily strict. The majority of my exams, which are through ProcturU, were reasonable. After a short discussion with a proctor you basically forget about them and go about your test ignoring it. The first exam is likely the worst if you’ve never experienced these and after you get through it you realize it’s fine.

If you have the financial and technical means pick up a cheap and/or used computer to use as your proctoring machine. If you work for an org they might have old laptops they’ll give you as they are decommissioned. From my understanding the only elevated thing beyond the “Guardian Browser” is for classes that require the use of Excel, which isn’t needed for the CS program. You can then wipe your computer clean when you’re done. I don’t really trust these applications they make you use nor the proctors in general and I feel pretty strongly you should not be using your primary computer and should factory reset/reinstall upon completion.

WGU and Grammarly

WGU has a weird love affair with Grammarly. You will be given a failing grade if you turn in anything that Grammarly, which is an AI based text writing/grammar tool, says is poor in some areas. I don’t care for Grammarly myself. I find it’s only useful in fixing basic grammar mistakes, like what google already does. It complains about tone frequently, especially passive voice. I do a lot of technical writing in my career and I write mostly in passive voice. Grammarly seems to be on a crusade to abolish passive voice which I don’t find particularly useful. I feel that WGU should drop Grammarly and just require basic grammar checks instead. Having to run all my papers through this before turning it in and fixing every “red” item became deeply frustrating and felt like a giant waste of time.

Staying Motivated

I think anyone will do well in an online program by being fairly disciplined with their education. I’ve definitely found it easier as I’ve gotten a bit older to force myself to work on classes I wasn’t particularly interested in and keeping a regular pace. I found that trying to commit 10-20 hours of studying was an effective amount of time. This seems to line up with other recommendations online and even WGU itself. I also found it very helpful to put all the classes in a spreadsheet and track their progress as I went through each of them. I tracked data like how hard other students felt the classes were, my time spent on them, and made predictions to how many more hours it would take to get through the class by splitting it up into percentages based on reading modules, exams, and task counts. I worked backwards from my predictions to have a better understanding if I was on target with my goals as I didn’t want to spend more money then I expected on the program. I didn’t force myself to work on school every day but I did force myself to a minimum number of hours per week.

For some the cost of doing more terms or spending more months with subscriptions can be a strong motivating factor into pushing yourself to get more out of each month. This was definitely a big factor for myself. I knew I wanted to not spend more than two terms at WGU and I wanted the overall cost to be lower than what it would cost to finish my degree at the local University. Now that I’m in a different program at CU Boulder where I’m paying a fixed price per class I’ve found that I think about the programs very differently and I have been trying to slow down my progress to avoid spending too much money each month.

Stats

I wanted to share some stats about the classes and direction I took with the program. If you skipped to this section I want you to have some context that I am a software developer with over 20 years of professional experience. I have worked on a wide variety of systems such as full stack development, all major operating systems, databases, mobile, embedded systems, ASM for Intel ARM and intrinsics, 3D, XR, DSP, desktop programming, optimization, networking, machine learning, numerous programming languages, and many other disciplines.

In total the entire program, from Sophia, Study.com, Scrum Alliance, WGU Academy, and WGU took 606.62 hours for me to complete. I started my first class at Sophia on February 15th, 2024. My first class at WGU began on December 1st, 2024 and I finished my last class at WGU on April 29th, 2025. The entire program took 1 year and 2 months and the time I spent at WGU specifically took 5 months. I was able to complete the WGU program in a single term due to the outside courses I completed before entering.

Note: in the table above the “Old” column signifies a class that changed between the CS program that when I submitted for my official transcript evaluation was dropped during the month of November due to the CS program change that started on December 2024, as such I didn’t get any credit for this class.

Note: difficulty is ranked from 1-5 where 1 is very easy and 5 is very hard. I would not consider any class for my undergraduate degree to be a 5 in difficulty. If you want a comparison I did find more challenging classes in the MSCS CU Boulder program. The difficulty is not directly related to the time spent, though you can judge for yourself if I knew the material and skipped to the task/exam based on the hours spent on the class.

Note: I received a credit of $99 when I enrolled in WGU for the WGU Academy class I took.

Brief Remarks on each Class

These classes are listed in alphabetical order based on the WGU course name, even though I took some outside of WGU.

Advanced AI and ML - WGU

Seems a bit like a replacement for the previous capstone that was removed in late 2024. If you finish Artificial Intelligence Optimization for Computer Scientists, D682, you should be ok with this class. Most difficult part is coming up with a concept for what you want to do.

Advanced Data Management - SDC

The practice vs real exam was quite different. If you auto-completed a lot of this course you will likely not know the answer they are looking for many questions.

Advanced Java - WGU

Good idea of a class but I did not like the implementation it’s not how you would do this in the real world. Very easy to complete if you have any background in programming with threads and localization though.

American Politics and the US Constitution - SOP

Very enjoyable but a lot of material to read and memorize. It’s a great class that covers a large amount of how the US Government works.

Applied Probability and Statistics - SOP

Not a terribly difficult course, it’s a good refresher on stats if you’ve already studied it.

Artificial Intelligence Optimization for Computer Scientists - WGU

The course task is well designed but the learning materials are difficult to follow as they feel out of order. If you don’t already know how to train a model you’ll have a very difficult time with this course. The actual book is good but you aren’t explicitly told to read the entire thing. I have a feeling a lot of students will complain about this class due to the lack of learning in the class itself.

Back-End Programming - WGU

I did not care for any of the courses that used Java. Not that Java is the issue, the problem is they just aren’t well done. If you’re already experienced with web programming this shouldn’t be much of a challenge.

Business of IT – Applications - WGU

Very easy class if you have any production background in IT. Read the practices chapter, watch the ValueInsights, and do the github and jason dion practice quizzes and you should be in a very good position.

Calculus I - SOP

Decent course. I’ve taken calc in highschool and did AP calc AB and BC with passing grades, took calc 2 at a university, but it was more than 5 years ago. I didn’t remember how to do all the work from that time but a lot of it came back to me or the overall concepts were familiar. I enjoyed this course. This was a good refresher if you haven’t forgotten everything about Calculus. You will need to already know algebra well for any course in Calculus.

Composition: Successful Self-Expression - SOP

Easy class, just takes some time to write papers. Not a bad class.

Computer Architecture - SDC

Decent course that you will learn a lot about circuitry which I hadn’t had too much experience before. It has a decent amount of focus on memory.

Computer Science Capstone

I believe this was dropped and replaced for “Computer Science Project Development with a Team - D687”. I did not take this class as the program swapped.

Data Management - Applications - SDC

Not a terrible class but definitely jumps into complex database concepts too quickly and doesn’t really cover the meat and potatoes of database querying. The only assignment does cover a decent amount but the questions don’t always align to what you’re thinking of. If you don’t already know SQL you’re likely going to struggle here. I would consider this a much better introduction to databases then the sophia CS1011 course. Mostly focused on MySQL which is the DB I have the most experience with which made my life easier.

Data Management - Foundations - SOP

If you have experience with SQL and NoSQL you should do well here. I didn’t particularly care for this class, it might be challenging coming into this without any background with databases.

Data Structures and Algorithms I - SDC

Not as hard as people make it out to be, but it does help a lot if you have a programming background. It’s definitely focused on algorithms and you will need to understand basic computer science concepts like big-o notation.

Data Structures and Algorithms II - WGU

Actually a decent task for the course. If you know Python and DSA well you can likely just start the task. The assignment is well thought out and very similar to real world complex problems you might have. If you don’t know how to code this is likely going to be a very difficult class.

Discrete Mathematics I - SDC

I have taken discrete structures 1 and 2 at university but they didn’t transfer. Most of my knowledge about this area was lost except for general concepts or things I still knew about (like big o notation and basic linear algebra). The lessons feel a bit repetitive in some areas (like they will re-explain what a factorial is about 20 times) but other areas like linear recurrence is barely covered and you’d likely need to seek outside information to fill in gaps.

Discrete Mathematics II - WGU

This is a fairly challenging class in terms of broad topics. There was quite a bit of overlap from the DM1 course on study.com. I think the biggest challenge of this course is the sheer amount of material you need to know and I used every minute of my exam time to answer a lot of questions. The practice and objective tests are similar but I’d say the OA is a bit more challenging. You 100% should be confident in figuring out inverse mod, extended euclidean, and probabilities/counting. I spent the most amount of time on this course as I was worried I wasn’t going to pass the exam but I did by a large margin. I took discrete structures 1 and 2 at a university 20 years prior and it was quite similar. The study.com class was also very helpful in preparing me as many of the topics overlapped from there (but study.com didn’t go deep enough into the topics).

Ethics in Technology - WGU

The book is very dry with many laws to cover. While the book is a bit dull I felt it was very useful and ended up reading it cover to cover. It’s actually a very useful course if you work in software.

Fundamentals of Information Security - SDC

Not a great class. It repeats itself quite a bit and doesn’t really get beyond a surface level understanding.

Global Arts and Humanities - SOP

It’s a quick class and teaches you about the ancient greek philosophers so you’ll have a better understanding of many common things that others references like the Allegory of the Cave. While it doesn’t get super deep it’s a decent introduction course into ancient philosophy.

Health, Fitness, and Wellness - SOP

Interesting class, easy and enjoyable, took a bit of time.

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - SDC

Not a terrible intro to AI but it could be improved. I took this at SDC and I’d recommend you take this at WGU instead.

Introduction to Communication: Connecting with Others - SOP

Easy class if you don’t mind writing. Even easier if you already familiar with management or office work and culture.

Introduction to Computer Science - WGU

If you already have a working experience in software development this is a very easy course.

Introduction to IT - SOP

Very easy course if you’re already familiar with IT, computers, etc.

Introduction to Physical and Human Geography - UofU

This was the one transfer I got credit for with ~2 years of university program in CS, it was then dropped when the program switched and I no longer got credit for it

Introduction to Systems Thinking and Applications - SOP

This was a new concept and a new course. I was likely one of the first people to finish this class as it was not available in the December 2024 when my program started. Overall the assignments were decently straightforward and easy enough to follow along. This course felt very business focused, so if you’ve done any project management or business related courses in IT this should be pretty similar.

IT Leadership Foundations - WGU

It’s a bit dull and very vocab focused class. I didn’t really care for it but it’s not difficult to complete.

Java Frameworks - WGU

I really don’t care for any of the Java classes at WGU, I have nothing to add that anyone else hasn’t already written about.

Java Fundamentals - SOP

This class is very easy for someone that knows how to program in another language even if you don’t know any or much of Java. It’s nearly identical to the Python class at Sophia.

Linux Foundations - WGU

This was a very easy exam for me as I started using linux in the 1990s and have a lot of experience with it and use it on a daily basis. I felt the 3rd party exams were more specific then the practice exam I took on Udemy (Jason Dion). If you don’t know Linux this is likely quite a challenging class with a lot of new things to learn. If you already know it well you aren’t likely to learn much but it might be a useful refresher for you or you might learn a random obscure thing here and there.

Natural Science Lab - SOP

Fun class that is done in an application and very different from other classes at Sophia. Very surface level but still mildly educational. The writing projects aren’t very well designed but if you just put a lot of information in them you’ll get through them. I liked the program outside of these writing projects.

Network and Security - Foundations - SOP

Very poor course. I have a good background in general modern networking but this covered a lot of old information about networking and cisco specific details. Did not enjoy it. It can seem a little difficult just because it goes into a lot of tech that isn’t super common for most people that don’t have a deep networking background.

Operating Systems for Computer Scientists - WGU

So far the best course I’ve taken at WGU. Actually filled in some gaps I had in how processes and threads are selected even though I have professional experience in multi-threading with c++. If you know a lot about how memory works this shouldn’t be too difficult of a class. Helps to have some power-user level knowledge of both Linux and Windows. This is the type of class I can really stand behind and say it’s well designed and covers a lot of material.

Operating Systems for Programmers - WGU

This is now “Operating Systems for Computer Scientists - D686”. I took that course instead.

Practical Applications of Prompt - WGU

I was already familiar with AI, ML, prompting, etc as I do this for a living. This class is mostly focused on entry level concepts along with ethics and does not get into very deep or specific topics. There is a good chance you could likely pass without reviewing anything if you work in this field or have studied ML.

Scripting and Programming - Applications - WGU

I use c++ frequently for both professional and personal work. This is a very easy class if you have any background with c or c++. This project is much more straightforward than the Java projects.

Scripting and Programming - Foundations - SOP

This is likely an easy class if you know Python, if not you will learn a bit but there are plenty of great places to learn Python.

Software Design and Quality Assurance - WGU

Extremely easy class if you have any experience with software tickets. While the tasks they ask you to do are realistic the amount of additional work you have to put in is extremely unrealistic.

Software Engineering - Scrum

I became certified through the Scrum Alliance which transferred in as a credit. Anyone that has any programming and/or project management experience will have a very easy time. The scrum test is quite easy if you do a few hours of studying and pay attention in the class, but the exam does ask you questions that were never covered in material/classes. About 12-16 hours of class with 1-3 hours of studying and about half an hour for the exam. If you go this route, you’ll need to realize the classes are live and must be scheduled.

Technical Communication - WGU

This course was removed from the program and I didn’t take it.

Version Control - WGU

If you use git already you will likely wrap this class up on your first day at WGU. It’s more of a light intro then anything else just to make sure you can complete the later courses which all use git.

Web Development Foundations - SOP

Should be quite an easy class if you have any web development experience.

Conclusion

If you ended up reading everything above I hope you found this post useful. I spent a lot of time looking for what others had to say about WGU before deciding to enroll. I wanted to give another opinion and more information to help others make a decision.

If you are anything like me I can highly recommend going this route. Traditional programs are great but it’s hard with a demanding job to work them into your schedule and I’m very grateful programs like WGU and others are now becoming more common. I enjoyed this approach enough that I am now pursuing a masters degree in computer science which I didn’t anticipate in doing when I first started. I think online programs like this can be very affordable if you’re motivated and plan well.

Best of luck to any future students.