"...when the rate of change outside the company is faster than the rate of change inside the company, the end is near." - Jack Welch
If I cleaned my toilet every time I was frustrated with WGU, I'd have scraped so much porcelain, it would no longer be strong enough to support the tissue box that I keep on the tank.
My main frustrations:
- Poor rubric. It's completely useless. If you know the difference between "student gives some detail" versus "student gives substantial detail, you're way ahead of me. If they want X number of examples, it should state that.
- Lack of useful feedback by the graders. If you know what X grader means by "student did not provide adequate detail" but then fails to explain specifically what to address, you're way ahead of me.
- Failure to acknowledge input. I've emailed, called, and completed forms to air all of my complaints, given suggestions and even examples to several people at the school. Not once did anyone ever follow-up with me to let me know that what I submitted was even received.
- Bi-weekly mentor calls. I get it. You think that by having someone call me every other week, that it will help me to stay motivated. You're wrong. 90% of what we talk about is 100% unrelated to school. It's mentally draining to have to clear out an hour to an hour and a half of time that I could be spending on other things (school included), only to wait, sometimes a half hour or more, for my mentor to call. Then, once she does, to talk about her kids, my marathons, or the weather.
- Learning materials that are outdated and completely irrelevant. Seriously. I'm taking IT Strategic Solutions right now, and one of the books, "Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies" was written in 2008. You cannot be serious! Here's a quote from the book,
it is entirely plausible that 2-petabyte storage systems will be the norm.
Two petabytes of information is enough to store all the information in
every U.S. academic research library or, alternatively, 2,000 broadcast-
quality movies."
I'm not smart enough to know if this is, indeed true, even in 2013
- Wikipedia is considered an ok resource to cite as a reference. (As is interviewing yourself as I found out first-hand in the Leadership class.)
- WGU focuses on the wrong things. It's got a shiny website, but fails to listen to it's most important resource;
me, it's student body. - Lack of support. Yes, I have my student and course mentors but I'd do much better if I could meet others in my program face-to-face. I don't feel like I can be completely honest with them. I recently took another online class and was able to meet people in my area. Despite its heavy workload, I enjoyed the class, and never felt a lack of motivation. There are online forums, however, there have been rumors that people posing as other WGU students, are actually WGU staff. Those infiltrators are then reporting students who they feel are