In fall 2019, I started my bachelor’s in computer science at Western Governors University. By April 2020, I had finished my degree.
At most schools, this would be impossible. WGU, however, has a unique system. Students sign up for a six-month term at a fixed tuition price. You start with a regular semester’s worth of classes. Once you finish those first four classes, you can take additional ones as long as you finish them before the end of the term. In theory, you can complete your entire degree in a single six-month term. My studies only took an extra 3 months. If you are looking to do the same, here are some of my best tips:
1. Play for time, not grades. Every class at WGU is taken pass/fail. GPAs for every student are considered a straight 3.0. Unlike most other schools, it does not matter if you pass a class by 1 point or 20.
This is augmented by the fact that your grade in most classes is usually determined by a single final exam or project. Your time does not need to be spent on unnecessary homework assignments or readings. Once you feel comfortable enough to pass the final exam or project, take it and move on.
WGU’s system is antithetical to what most students have experienced since kindergarten. Putting in the extra work for an A is meaningless for your transcript. Each extra day just puts you further from your goal of graduation.
Of course, students need to ensure that they gain the foundational knowledge for future classes and their careers. But oftentimes the amount of effort required to earn an A in a class is significantly larger than what is required for a B and comes with diminishing returns.
In many ways, this pass/fail system at WGU is far more akin to how the real world works. Time always carries an opportunity cost, so learning to optimize for that criteria is an incredibly valuable real world skill.
2. Stick to the rubric. Every programming project and paper has a clearly defined rubric. Grading at WGU is outsourced to a third-party who will draconically stick to those guidelines, so you must do the same.
For programming projects, make sure all your test cases pass, and you have written the required documentation. With essays, the rubric is even more important. Some of the requirements in the rubric are repetitive. These repetitions could condensed down into single sections when writing, but then you are beholden to the grader’s interpretation.
A far better solution is to break your paper down into matching sections for the rubric. Leave no doubt in the grader’s mind that you have covered all the requirements.
This can lead to severe bloat in your papers. Most of my essays’ word counts could easily have been cut in half to create a far stronger work. But again, your grade is pass/fail. The quality of the results only matter so much.
If you are a halfway competent writer, you do not need to worry about any stylistic requirements. As long as your paper can get its ideas across, a few spelling and grammar mistakes will not cause you to fail. As such, my strategy was to crank out as many words as fast as possible to meet the grading guidelines. Other than my capstone project, my first drafts received little revision besides a cursory skim. Nonetheless, I never failed a single paper and even received a few commendations for my work.
3. Study every day. My nine months at WGU were spent fanatically focused on my studies. Each day was mostly the same: work, study, sleep. I spent virtually no time on other hobbies and kept my social life to a minimum.
Of course, you need to ensure that your pace is sustainable. Fortunately for me, I was extremely motivated to earn my degree and not pay for a third term of classes. Those were powerful enough forces to keep me from ever feeling burnt out. You need to know when you are pushing yourself too hard but also when you have more to give.
At the very least, put some work into your classes every day. During my time at WGU, I would study for an hour daily. Usually, this commitment would multiply several fold, but an hour was the bare minimum regardless of how I was feeling each day.
You might struggle to build this habit at the beginning of your studies. You might struggle with it halfway through your program. But consistency is key. Once you push through that first mental hurdle, your end goal is achievable. To steal a line from Bojack Horseman, “It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you got to do it every day. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier.”
By following these three pieces of advice, you can succeed and earn your computer science degree in less than a year!
…But that advice is also bullshit. I stand by everything I wrote above, but none of that is the most important reason for my success. The ultimate secret to earning your CS degree in 9 months is actually spending 12 years getting your degree.
My undergraduate experience was a long journey. In high school, I had been a straight A student. I graduated sixth in my class and was accepted to the University of Texas at Austin as an honors biomedical engineering student with a full scholarship. My first semester GPA was a 4.0. Then everything went to hell.
I failed classes and lost my scholarship. Engineering turned into philosophy, bringing constant questions of, “Philosophy? What on earth are you going to do with that?” After five unsuccessful years, I dropped out completely and went to work at the same grocery store I bagged at during high school.
My failure was due to several reasons. First, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Second, I had never been academically challenged before. University was the first time I had to struggle for success. Rather than rise to the challenge though, I gave up. My mental health cratered, and my academic aspirations were destroyed.
Eventually, I got my life sorted. I built a career in retail management and started taking classes again at community college. After an especially bad day at work, I realized that I wanted to get my computer science degree and become a professional programmer. Coding has been a passion of mine since I learned how to build my own websites with HTML in elementary school. Soon after I made my decision, I discovered Western Governors University and chose to pursue my degree there.
Though I had earned many college credits from the University of Texas and Lone Star College, few of those courses transferred. I started at WGU with only 30 credit hours. Nonetheless, I was familiar with plenty of the subject material. My prior philosophy and math classes made WGU classes like discrete math and statistics trivial affairs. Furthermore by this point, I had been programming as a hobby for about two decades. I had built a solid foundation to help me blaze through programming assignments.
In so many ways, I had unfair advantages over other WGU students due to my previous academic experiences. Replicating my speed would be near impossible for a fresh computer science student. The best advice is to take the coursework at your own reasonable pace. Maybe that will take you three, four, or even five years. That is still far better than my twelve year pace. Once you get to the end, how long you took to get there will no longer matter.
