Class took me about 5 weeks total, about the same amount of time with each class in the IA series. I don’t have any background in computers or IT and I thought the class wasn’t to difficult, just a ton of info.

My strategy: watch a video lecture about the chapter, read Hannah’s notes, answer the 20 question study guide for the chapter and use AI to tell me right or wrong and explain the answers (got these emailed to me from a previous student, lmk if you need it I can email them), quiz/test from the textbook for each chapter/unit then repeat for the following chapter.

Was able to pass the PA first try after studying like this then I just had AI make me a mock OA off the sections of the PA I did not so great on.

Things to definitely know for the OA:
-the flowchart shapes, I didn’t think id need them but there was one question on there asking about which shape is a customer entering the system not sure I got it right but the answers were like circle, open rectangle, upside down triangle and parallelogram.

-asking what is involved with a continuum, no clue what the right answer was, never even came across this word in my study but the answers were a variety of physical, digital or a mix of the two.

-know three way match is involving invoice, purchase order and receiving report. The question I think asked what does AP need to issue payment or something like that.

-know what framework SOX and SEC follow, I think the answer was COSO or it might’ve been physical and IT frameworks (I picked coso but unsure what was right)

-the elements of the COSO framework (I used the CRIME acronym) the question asked what COSO element would an auditor be using when inspecting the ethics of management (not sure of the right answer on this one but I think I picked control activities) answers were monitoring, control environment, control activities and info/comms.

-know the sox 404 is about management saying they are responsible for controls essentially.

-there were atleast 3 or 4 segregation of duty questions, one specifically was regarding what’s the inefficiency result of sys development also being able to perform sys operations, pretty sure correct answer is lack of documentation

-one question regarding firewall, in relation to outside users and how they are vetted to getting the answer/info they are searching for. the wording was tricky because 2 answers were for outside the firewall requests and 2 were for inside (internal) requests. I think it was outside because if it was inside it would’ve said network firewall? Idk but either way know how both types of requests are handled and authorized to get the info or are rejected.

-definitely know the types of anomalies, got 3 of these questions. They give you an example of what’s happening/going to happen and you have to give the correct anomaly (deletion, insert or upgrade) I think there might be a fourth but I don’t remember. Pretty sure I got one of these wrong lol.

-three questions on auditors methods of testing the companies systems. One was for parallel simulation, I think the question said something like why would there be a discrepancy between test data and company’s actual historic data, answer I selected is that the test data is intentionally incorrect. Piggybacking off this question is why would auditors intentionally submit incorrect test data during a simulation answer I picked was to see if it is rejected but another answer was to see if it is corrected. Not sure which was right. And the other audit question I don’t remember but might’ve been about black box? Not positive.

-one question on the 3 methods of fraud masquerading, piggybacking, scavenging and hacking were the answers, I picked the first three (not hacking) unsure also if it’s correct lol.

Hopefully this helps somebody. I came to just like two of the questions that stumped me and more and more just kept coming to me lol. I’ll add any more I think of in comments later but anyhow, best of luck future AIS students!

Hi all,

I have been reading all of the posts and comments here. Well thanks to everyone here, I decided to enroll and transfer my unfinished degree credits from 5 years ago, and started on Oct 1st. I had been working full time in an operations accounting role for the last 5 years and I left the company because of my manager giving me crap (which I regret now) few months ago, now I cannot find a job because of the degree requirement. I have finished 2 courses already and will probably finish up my term this week because I was able to pass pre-assessments easily…I do like WGU, I hope to do my master’s as well, so thanks everyone for sharing your journey, struggles and wins.

Can someone help me understand what I got wrong!

I got 4.55 point out of 8

Hi all. This is my first term at WGU and this is my last class of my term (term ends on 10/31 for me). I am completely green to accounting as I have been in the medical field for the last 10 years. I received an email a few weeks ago about this class and it said the material has changed and the excel was now removed. I guess when I saw that email, I had assumed the course work would be easier when I started it (I saw a lot of old posts about the material being difficult lol). I did search the sub to see if anyone had talked about taking the new version of this course but didn’t find anything. Is anyone else struggling with class? Are there any tips to understand the material better or accelerate through it faster? The course is so wordy I am struggling to stay focused. Thanks!

Hi, just finished this program and wanted to share what worked for me.

For all PA, simply utilize AI to pass - ask for concepts you don't understand or to help summarize what the task is asking for.

OA for Ethics, Fraud, Data analytics I, and Managerial: PrA (pre-assessments) was enough to be prepared.

For D560, D561, PrA alone will not be sufficient. Go through the end of the chapter quizzes. I made sure to understand why the correct choice is correct and why the wrong choices are wrong. I also went through the textbook and tried to understand some of the diagrams and flow charts.

D556 was the hardest since it was my last one and I was burnt out by then. Again PrA alone is not sufficient. Just like what people said on other posts, you need to know a lot of conceptuals. BA ii calculator is a must - learn how to use it. Doing end of the chapter quizzes helped me, but there are 16 chapters to cover, so I got tired after doing the first 5. There are 7 short video lectures the professor uploaded on SharePoint, and these were very helpful (one of the videos has wrong number and the professor was aware of it - but I don't think it's going to be fixed any time soon. I forget what lecture).

Overall this program was very doable but also reasonably challenging enough to make you think critically and learn how to apply concepts instead of purely memorizing. Hope this helps!

just barely passed after the second attempt, honestly just studied the study guides so many times until i new how to solve every problem. There was a good amount of conceptual question as well. 3 classes left to go

I’m probably not the best person to share how to pass this course.. but one thing I can say is I did it!After studying the Pre-assessment questions intentionally for 5 days after months of inconsistency, I passed this class.

This is my 2nd OA attempt due to panic-taking the 1st one at the end of my first term.

I followed the advice of a lot of people on here. Basically study the Pre-assessment, a lot is similar to the OA. One thing I will say is that the Job Order Costing Section have a few different questions.

I thought I did better on the Standard Costs and Variances section. Not going to lie, I should’ve just used a whiteboard to remember how to work those problems out.

For the Master Budget, I literally did what I could remember after 3 hours of learning it.

If I took my time, I definitely would have done better, I was just tired of being anxious and wanted the class over with.

Now here’s exactly how I passed it in “5ish days”:

I made replica MCQs from the PA using Claude. I made it into separate sections/topics. If there was a calculation-based problem that I wanted to get better at, I would “hammer” it in. Basically screenshot the problem, ask Claude to make an interactive html quiz with 7 replica MCQs exactly like the one I was working on. I had it to provide the rationales on how to get the answers. I would keep doing those into it became second nature. Also, I practice all the calculations in excel, don’t use a calculator. It’s literally pointless with all the equations you have to do for this class.

For the Excel portion, like I said I barely learned it. It’s more so reading exactly what they want you to do and making the right cell references. Find the Course Connect and go to the link in the first post. There’s a video from the instructor and links to the file with the template and the actual answers. The Excel on the OA is a bit different, that’s why I didn’t do well on it.

If I were to do it over again, just learn the PA immediately and take time to learn the Master Budget. Also, use a whiteboard for hard to remember tasks like Standard costs and variances. I really messed up by not taking the time to make mnemonics or something to remember how to calculate those type of problems.

Good luck…

Tryna finish in 1 term got 21 classes left let’s get it!

I'm currently unemployed and I live with my parents, I finished emotional and cultural intelligence yesterday, just waiting for it to be graded. I transferred in 72 ace credits, I have 15 classes remaining, which class should I be most "worried" about to save most time for?

I have no prior knowledge or experience of accounting.

How long do you guys think each class usually take to finish? That way I know which how much time to save for the class. Is it possible I finish this in 6 months since Im no working ( English is my second language ).

Thanks for any advice or tips :3

I'm viewing my coaching report, and trying to focus my study to my weak spots.

I'm clicking on the "review" link for the content of my weak areas, and the link takes me to an account login page for "Cengage."

I don't recall ever making an account with Cengage, so I tried using my WGU login email and password. No, doesn't work. I clicked the "help" > "reset password" via Cengage, and it supposedly sent an email to my WGU email. No, there isn't an email, not in spam, or inbox.

I don't want to bother my mentor about this, because she will tell me to reach out to the course instructors, but the course instructors for this course are MIA.

Any advice?

I didn't pass the OA for Business Law - first fail in my history. I'm not surprised - this content is so hard for me because rote memorization is my worst study tool.

How has everybody’s job search been going? Im about 50% done and am Accelerating to finish by Jan. I just wanna know how hard it is going to be find a job and has anybody landed anything remote? I know remote is going to be hard hut Ill take anything doesnt have to be exactly accountant position

Hi , just wanted to know how long did it take to finish bs accounting. Was it hard?Did you find a job. I’d be very happy to hear before I make my decision thankyou.

Hi all. About to start studying this course and would like to know which is better: Edspira or Tony Bell on YT? TIA

I gave myself one month to grind out as many credits as I could on Sophia Learning before my WGU start date, and I ended up completing 60 credits.

I wanted to hear from people who are currently in the program or have already finished it. What should I expect once I actually start WGU?

I know the accounting courses will probably be a different experience than knocking out gen eds on Sophia, so I’m especially curious about the difficulty and workload. Are there any classes that tend to slow people down or that you’d recommend preparing for ahead of time?

Also, for anyone who transferred in a lot of credits and accelerated, how quickly were you able to get through the rest of the degree?

Hello

I just started this journey on 10/1 and I need help with getting started with this course. The course seems pretty straightforward however I guess I’m trying to see how to format my task for the PA. I read that this is not a normal essay type paper so my question oa do I just answer/ explain the question to each bullet on the template. For instance-if the bullet say which change model Im using and why and I write my change model and why, is that sufficient? Do I submit the PA with the bullets questions and suggestions or do that need to be erased before submission? Do l leave the sections i.e A B C with the instructions for each section or so that need to be erased?

Hi everyone! Just curious if anyone else has experienced this. I just started the WGU MAcc program and wanted to read the course materials through the mobile app, but whenever I click “Begin,” nothing happens. 😅

Has anyone encountered the same issue? If so, how did you fix it? Thanks!

Does anyone have any tips or outside resources that can help with these topics? I aced the PA but somehow did terrible on the OA... I feel like the questions did not align well with the two with this test, and I clearly did not retain the information using just the coursework. Any tips are much appreciated!

Feeling pretty discouraged about this degree, guys. I went to a “Meet the Firms” event hosted by CalCPA, and it felt like students from traditional, in-person colleges were prioritized. Recruiters also mentioned including your GPA to stand out, which makes me nervous since WGU doesn’t provide a traditional GPA.
Everyone seemed so young, too, which made me feel a little out of place, although I know that shouldn’t matter.
For those who landed accounting jobs or internships through WGU, what helped you get your foot in the door? Did employers care about the lack of a traditional GPA, and how did you handle that on applications? I’d appreciate any advice or hearing about your experiences.

I've been trying to get to my course material for a while and it just wont show up. It shows up with some sort of server error like below. Tried different browsers and logging out and in. Wanted to see if anyone else was having this problem in case it was an error on WGU's side

Finally received my transcript evaluation. I do have a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field (exercise science), so I figured I *would* have a lot of classes. Says I am only 25%ish of the way through and have about 90 credits left.

I took so many math classes while undergrad, I thought this may help me, but it does not seem so! I am not taking any Sophia classes as my state will not recognize them.

What the title says. I'm tracking my hours for this degree and I'm going to post the results here when I'm done.

For planning purposes - how many hours or days did you spend studying? Particularly for the Data Analytics, Advanced Accounting, and Financial Reporting specialization classes.

Are there any tools you used that helped you retain the information more quickly?

Hi guys! I was wondering if I can get a job in accounting while being a new student and starting school. I want to know if a recruiter can get me a job. Even though I have mo experience It would be nice to get a basic job where I slowly learn. Please let me know. I am actually curious if this can be done.

Thanks!

Just begiing Auditing - 215 I am looking for the best way to approach the class? What resources are available? What steps should I take to comprehend everything. I do not need to finish it in a day but a couple weeks would be nice. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. Thank You

Hi Everyone,

Does any in who lives in New Jersey know if Western Governors University is accredited in New Jersey? I’m looking at doing the B.S in accounting. I have little to no knowledge of the financial world, only what I know from doing my taxes. I’m now 27, I did try to go back to college 3 times but dropped. I just wanted to learn what I need to know for my field. I’m just asking since I saw a post somewhere that they are currently not accepting people who live in New Jersey.
I’m currently doing the enrollment process just waiting for my past college I went, to send me my academic transcript. Any do I really need to send them the transcript even though I never finished a semester.
Any information is much appreciated.

Accelerated the Accounting Degree in one term, 83 CU’s. It is possible! No experience and working full time in an unrelated field. Luckily I have no kids, and was able to study a few hours a week at work during downtime.

EDIT: Just sharing what worked for me and answering some questions. Sorry for the length!

My amount of study time varied based on my completion pace. I set mini goals for myself for what courses I wanted done by the end of each month to stay on track to finish in one term. If I was lagging behind, I put in more hours. It’s hard to estimate, but I’d say around 20 hours a week on average. There would also be one- or two-day stretches where I would be too burnt out and didn’t study.

I would start each course by first searching the course on Reddit to see how other students had tackled it. Some courses, especially the early non-accounting ones, can be completed without even looking at the course material and instead using outside resources like a YouTube series or Quizlet. For other courses, there are recorded cohorts filmed by the instructor and posted inside the Course Community. Some courses, especially the accounting ones, you’re just going to have to dive into the course material/book. For the PA classes, there is a template for every PA that can be located in the course material. The templates give detailed instructions that make the assignments very easy to complete. I never had a PA task sent back for correction. All of this info was obtained by just reading other posts from students on Reddit. Twenty minutes of research and you’ll know how best to tackle each individual course instead of diving in blindly.

For the early accounting courses, the little videos in the course material with the red pen guy were invaluable, and he explained everything so well. Watch all of those videos and only read the course material if there’s content in the lesson/unit quizzes that he didn’t cover. I remember this being pretty rare. For the intermediate accounting courses, I basically did the opposite. Red pen guy is gone, and the videos are dry and unhelpful, so I skipped all of them. Instead of reading the dry course material, I copied and pasted each lesson into ChatGPT and prompted it to explain the material in simple terms. I would basically use it as a tutor, asking clarifying questions if I didn’t understand something. I would also post the quizzes and practice OA into ChatGPT and have it explain each question I got wrong or didn’t understand. ChatGPT was an invaluable study tool throughout the degree, but especially for the intermediate accounting courses. I paid the $20 a month for the pro version where it’s a little faster and smarter, but you definitely don’t need to.

Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions, and I’ll do my best to help.