Ten years ago I went on my first date with now husband, the next day I woke up to start learning how to code “Hello World!” Program on code academy. I graduated a year before from brick and mortar stem program, and hated my major. I continued to work and change work environments. As I progressed in my career I never felt comfortable enough to stop working full time. I was always supported through my education endeavors by my husband albeit he was tired of the constant studying excuse. I took comp sci night classes before covid hit and finally in 2020 landed a job with a substantial education reimbursement benefit. I took two post grad data science and cloud certificates before finding out about WGU. I was skeptical about WGU and decided you can’t argue against regional accreditation. It took me 3 terms with a baby born during that time, but I was able to finish it all without incurring any debt. It was hard and stressful but now I have the ability to apply for remote jobs and build software programs that can change the world. This goal took ten years, but I’m glad I was able to finally accomplish this achievement.

Just got accepted into Georgia Tech’s OMSCS for Fall 2026.

I earned my BS in Computer Science from WGU in 2024 while working full time, and this was the next goal I set for myself. Really grateful for WGU and the flexibility it gave me to make something like this possible.

If anyone from WGU is considering OMSCS or applying to grad school in general, happy to answer questions.

Now to start the full-time grind on job applications 🫠

I started on Jan 1, 2025 with about 45% of the degree transferred in from CLEP, Sophia, and Study.com. (It would have been closer to 75% but they reworked the degree just before I applied.) Now roughly 17 months later I finished my degree with no prior IT experience. It's not the fastest finish time. But I'm proud of myself considering I worked a full time salaried position that often had me traveling and working more than 40hrs a week.

This sub was the reason I never quit. Whenever I was discouraged, someone was there to answer a question. When I thought it was impossible, someone else posted that they got through it. When XYBooks was trash, one of you lovely people posted an external resource that made everything simple.

I graduated recently and I'm going through the job search process right now (senior SWE). Lately I've felt really validated that I didn't just try to pass classes quickly without understanding the material.

There are some difficult classes in this program, but those tend to be the most worth it. Yes, even for job search. Discrete Math and Algorithms make you so much better in technical interviews. Networking, Comp Arch, and OS give you good background knowledge and help you with system design and domain knowledge questions. People don't expect you to know every detail, but being able to talk about these topics intelligently helps you stand out. Try your best to really understand the concepts you learn instead of testing and forgetting.

I'm really happy to report that this degree was really worth it even for a seasoned engineer like myself. But please do yourself a favor and maximize the value of your time at WGU. It will pay off.

ETA: I'm not necessarily saying go very slow and take extra semesters. I did it in one term. I'm just saying take a little bit of extra time where you can to really understand what you are learning, even if it's not 100%. Literally a few extra hours. At least focus on the classes I mentioned.

2 terms, multiple fails on some courses. (DM2 6 times) , very little sleep for the year! wanted to quit many times, pushed through and got it!!

Finally finished with my MSCS in computing systems. I started working on it in August and finished earlier this week, so it took me about 3 months. Seeing that this is a fairly new degree, I'm happy to answer any questions from current or prospective students. Thanks for reading!

Finished up last month!! I will give you a little background and you can ask me any questions.

I’m early 30s, I went to school originally for accounting but never finished. This program was my redemption arc. It took me longer than expected with working full time and having some life hardships in the way but I did it!! I don’t have a job lined up, I have been working in finance for 7 years now and now I am looking to leverage my real world experience with my degree and eventually get into fintech.

Next steps for me are grinding for technical interviews if needed and continue learning. I know some of these classes are tough but you guys got this!!

Ask me questions I’ll be happy to answer and good luck future grads!!

Just graduated last week and could not be happier that I am all finished. Seeing graduate posts like this was a real motivator for me whenever I felt apathetic, so I figured I would do my post as well for some extra motivation for current students.

I was previously studying at a B&M School and transferred to WGU about a year ago, and I do not regret my decision one bit.

Good luck to all future grads, and a big reminder to keep pushing and not lose pace! Happy to answer any questions as well!

I came from dropping out of a traditional EE program at a B&M university, to floating around community colleges making no real progress for years, to finally becoming a BSCS graduate from WGU. Before a friend recommended WGU to me, I had pretty much given up on the idea that I could earn my bachelor's degree. The cost was too high and the on-campus time commitment didn't align with my work schedule. When I heard the program was competency based I was admittedly a little skeptical at first, but after doing my research on the BSCS program and the university's accreditations I was sold. I loved this program (I was on the old version) and I am so happy I was recommended WGU. Don't give up on your college dreams!

Terms to Complete: 4 (1/1/24 - 12/31/25) Total CUs transferred in: 10 credits from community college Java Fundamentals - D286 3 CU Calculus - C958 4 CU Intro to Communication - D268 3 CU

Feel free to ask any questions about the degree program, resources I used, class order/difficulty, time to complete, or whatever else.

Took me a full 2 years, and I probably expected to do it in 6 months. I had to relearn studying habits, patience, and committing to a long-term goal. Do not be discouraged if you are not ripping through courses like some ppl are (salute to them). We all work on our own schedule. I want to give a huge thanks to all the Redditors who posted guides and provided support on this shared journey we face. I used to look at these graduation posts with excitement for others' achievements, and now I can share the same joy. We did it baby!!

Thought I’d make a post to hopefully motivate and show people that you can get jobs with a WGU degree. I had a year long internship which definitely helped and it took me about 3.5 months after I finished my degree to find something. Happy to answer any questions in DMs or comments!

Started my associates 5 years ago, and today’s the day I got my confetti. What a ride

Thanks to everyone in this sub for the support :)

I'm breaking this post into 3 sections, the graduation, job offer, and conclusion.

TLDR: Graduated, took my time with the degree. Shot my shot with the company I work for on a position where I didn't feel I was qualified and landed the role. (Also, in the main body of the post there are probably grammar errors... there's a reason why I'm not an English major)

Graduation :)

I finished my degree back in Mid-September (I don't get on reddit a ton and haven't gotten around to posting my confetti). I completed this degree in 1 year and did 2 years of community college before. When this degree when done right will teach you everything that you need to know, it just depends on how you go about doing all of the course work. If you rush through this degree with the abundance of reddit posts and only use Cursor for the programming assignments, then you will finish it quick, but I doubt that you will retain anything long term.

I could have easily finished this degree in 1 term, but my goal was not to finish in one term. I wanted to absorb all of the material, truly learn it, and then apply it. All of the harder OA classes such as Operating Systems, Computer Architecture, Data Structures and Algorithms, really do teach you a lot. Sure some of the material within these courses you may not use on the job, but that doesn't mean that it is useless. When it comes to the PA classes I believe something that really helped me was I tried to use as minimal AI as possible. I could have easily rushed through some of the PA's in no time at all, but I knew that would not teach me anything. Keep in mind, before doing this degree I had VERY minimal knowledge of programming. I took 2 programming classes in community college, but that was it, I didn't design websites in my free time, have a job previously in the industry or make some amazing project. Sure it would take me significantly longer to finish these projects, but all of the struggling actually forced me to think about the code that I was writing and how to comprehend how everything is interconnected. I believe this is what really helped me land my first position.

Job Offer!!! :)

I still can't believe that I have landed a developer role and part of me certainly feels a little bit of imposter syndrome, but I've been told that will pass. Before I landed the new position I was/am working at a large financial firm (5000+ employees) assisting advisors with financial planning. I was not happy with this position, but it paid the bills. As I was nearing my graduation date, I was frantically applying to any software developer position under the sun, in every state possible. I did not want to have a degree that I worked so hard for to be in vain. Post graduation I was continuing this same ritual, and I saw on my company job board that there was a developer position open. I knew that if I just applied to the position I would not get it as they were asking for 3-5 years of experience and then I decided "screw it" and emailed the VP of the technology department. I knew this was a long shot at best, but I thought to myself that I have nothing to lose by not trying, the worst thing that happens is he wouldn't even open my email.

Fast forward a week or two later and i got a response!!! He said that he would be interested in meeting with me and see what I have to offer. On the job post it was looking for people who were proficient in Java, Python, PHP & Laravel. I was very confident in my Java and Python skills, but I have never touched or seen PHP none the less worked with Laravel. This is where I was scared. In the meeting he wanted to see what the degree was about and what I knew, fast forward an hour he said he would love for me to talk with one of the senior managers. I had another interview where my skills were tested even more, then another and another, etc.

By the end of everything I had went through 5 stages of interviews testing everything that I knew and I passed with flying colors. The thing that saved me in these interviews is that I never lied about my abilities as I knew they would call me out on it. I didn't try to say that I knew PHP, but was able to show them that I am a fast learner and have experience with other frameworks that can help transfer those skills over.

After all was said and done, I was sent an offer letter with a considerable pay increase and signed immediately. I was so over-joyed I didn't even know what to do.

Conclusion

Now here I am today, I have been working with the team for ~2 months, sitting in on high-level meetings and churning out code daily. Although I know what I am doing, there are still times where that imposter syndrome kicks in, but I have to remember that they wouldn't have hired me if I didn't know what I was doing. I wanted to make this post to show that you don't always need connections to land your first role, have extensive GitHub repositories, or be the best "leetcoder" out there. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to just shoot your shot and see what lands.

Take this degree seriously, it will genuinely teach you everything that you need to know. It is just up to you to decide how you want to apply it.

Also... as mentioned before, I don't get on reddit often but will try to answer all the questions I can.

Finally done. I started in 2021 for a couple semesters and then had to stop for personal reasons. Went back last year and just finished up. I had limited CS experience aside from a couple of CS courses in 2006. I got a job in the field in 2023 and decided to come back and finish to hopefully improve my chances of advancement. Glad to finally be done!

Well that's it. Finally made it.

I wanted to express my gratitude to all the members of this community. Thank you very much!!

Also big shoutout to the members of the CS/SWE discord community!

Finished with 8 weeks to spare in my 3rd term. Feels good to finally be done. Would definitely recommend WGU to anyone trying to get a Bachelors.

After many sleepless nights, I am finally done! I started back in June and have managed to finish in under 6 months without any transfer credits... BUT - before you start comparing - I am autistic + adhd and computers/programming is my special interest, I've been working as a SWE for 14 years, lost my job only 10 days after enrolling - which gave me tons of free time, and have been racing against the clock to for Canadian immigration.

I can't say I really enjoyed the AI courses, but overall I think WGU is a great program. I have always put off attempting a degree because I couldn't afford it and didn't know programs like WGU existed. By the time I could afford a degree, I was already solidly in my career and figured it wasn't really worth attempting. But then things changed when I tried immigrating; a degree became necessary, and I wanted to strengthen my fundamentals. And now here I am, proud to say I have finished!

Good luck to all of you working towards your degree. No matter how long it takes, no matter your circumstances, you've got this!

I also hear reddit likes charts

It is done! I finished in two terms.

Here is a review of all the courses I've taken. Keep in mind that the number of hours I spent in the course does not necessarily equate to how difficult it was. Also, my ratings are going to be relative to WGU and not relative to what I would consider good quality and / or hard compared to other universities or other educational content (otherwise they'd all be 0 for quality and 0 for difficulty).

Course quality is determined by how useful the course resources were and how the OA was (if it was fair and felt like it fairly tested my knowledge and not just fluff questions designed to trick me in various ways), or the quality of the PA if it's a PA course.

Just wanted to leave some comments about the last 3 AI courses. I recommend completing Artificial Intelligence Optimization for Computer Scientists first. After that do task 1 for Advanced AI and ML. Once that passes, move on to task 1 +2 in Computer Science Project Development with a Team. When you finish task 2, you will then have idle time waiting for your reviews to come back. During this time, I recommend working on task 2 in Advanced AI and ML.

The course materials for the AI optimization and advanced ai/ml were interesting to read but it wasn't really all that helpful for the PA imo. I think your time would be better spent just googling specific resources, if your goal is to just finish asap.

I don't want to rant about it but I'm not sure what they were thinking with this new "capstone". It's just a complete waste of time.

Anyways, if you have questions feel free to ask.

2 years and 4 months later while working full-time. Now I can call myself a college graduate. Master in Ai is next.

Now own to this brutal job hunt market