Complaint Review: Western Governors University

Warning! WGU is not for everyone! I was an engineering student at SDSU and dropped out my junior year for personal reasons. When I decided to return to school I chose WGU because of the convenience of taking online course work from home. The amount of credits that transferred over to WGU was acceptable. Because of my EE major, I had already completed my physics, chemistry and math requirements at SDSU before I enrolled at WGU to earn a degree for teaching math. It was pleasing to know that all of my previous, applicable courses transferred, no problem. All that was needed regarding mathematics was statistics, which was not a requirement for engineering students.

So, I excitedly started my course work at WGU. The first thing that struck me was the amount of time I was putting in to complete the assignments. I found myself putting in way more time than I ever did at SDSU and writing way more lengthy papers than expected. One lengthy paper after another; are you kidding me! My assumption was because it's a teaching program this must be the norm, so be it, I trudged through it. The experience was different and again, time consuming; not what I expected.

So, now I embark on taking the one missing math course needed, finally, I'm in familiar territory. First thing I noticed was the course material, it seemed to lack depth and substance. But, whatever, this was "statistics", the course that was not required for engineering students. As a matter of fact, as an engineering student, my favorite calculus instructor would liken us to his "statistics students", when browbeating us for poor performance or misbehavior in class. Statistics was considered a lower level math course not worthy of science and engineering students (lol). Well, I admit I struggled more than I expected with some of the course work but managed 85% or better on all the pre-assessments. Finally I finished the course work and pre-assessments and took my assessment for stats. Well, I failed horribly! I believe I scored like 57%. I was completely in shock. What had gone so terribly wrong!

Well, the coursework presented by WGU on this subject matter, was not representative of the material on the assessment test needed to pass the course. I reached out to my mentor and she did provide me with additional help in the form of tutoring from another WGU instructor. A weekly, one hour phone call was set up so I could receive additional instruction on the material that was not covered by the course work but present on the assessment. As it turned out, these meetings were not as productive as expected. The instructor was not able to address questions or instruct much within the allotted one hour phone call and frequently had to get back to me during our next phone call after having to consult with someone else.

So, along with the exuberant amount of time I already had to spend on countless lengthy papers and taking pre-assessments, I now had to spent additional time being "tutored/instructed" on material not covered in the coursework but present on the assessment. Wait a minute, isn't this statistics...

In the end, it was just not worth the time and money, so I dropped out only after incurring additional student loan debt. In fairness, I may just be a poor "statistics" student, not a good candidate for online learning or just not well acclimated to WGU's method of pedagogy.

Good luck to you, and best wishes to WGU and it's staff. Not all things are suited for all men...