I'm back!

Hey WGUers.  I've kind of abandoned this blog...maybe even more than once.  But I'm pulling myself out of an unmotivated rut and I think keeping up on this blog will help me stay focused.  So here I am.

Here are my stats right now:

Working toward my BS in Accounting.

From here on out, I'll let you guys know what I'm working on, any outside resources that help me through the courses, and most importantly, when I pass a class!  Feel free to leave me a comment on what you think about the classes I talk about, or any struggles you're having.  I'd love to get to know some of you a little better.

Also, I'm thinking about starting a virtual bookkeeping business so I can stay home with my boys a couple more years.  If anyone has any experience with this, please let me know in the comments below.

How To Be The Ultimate Taskstream Stalker

If you are a WGU student and you've had a performance assessment based class, odds are you are guilty of what we call Taskstream Stalking.  For those of you who don't know, Taskstream is where we send our papers and various tasks in for grading.  It can take up to 5 days for your task to be graded and those days of waiting and hoping can be tough.  Stalking becomes a solice.  

But did you know that you can have Taskstream come to you?  Instead of wasting all that time signing in and checking your status, you can set up text notification that will let you know the moment your grade is up!  I know...

So here is how to set it up...

From your WGU email account, click on the gear symbol in the upper right corner and select settings.

Click on the tab that reads "forwarding and pop/imap"

Click on "Add a forwarding address"

Type in your phone number followed by the appropriate ending below:

ATT: @txt.att.net

Boost: @myboostmobile.com

Sprint: @messaging.sprintpcs.com

TMobile: @tmomail.net

Verizon: @vtext.com

Click next

click on the "create a filter" link

In the "From" field, type "notification@taskstream.com"

In the "To" field, type your wgu email address 

Click to next step

Click "Forward it" and then click "create a filter"

Now you'll have Taskstream all over you.  No restraining order necessary.

Why Swagbucks Is Great For College Students

So far all of my posts have been about WGU but I've decided to add some basic student tips and tricks here and there to add some variety to the blog (and hopefully gain a few followers).  My first non-WGU post will be on something that has helped me considerably throughout my poor-student years...Swagbucks.

If you are not currently using Swagbucks, you are missing out on free gift cards to your favorite stores. Some of the gift cards offered include Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora, Starbucks, Target, even Paypal just to name a few.

The best part is earning gift cards is so easy, you won't even notice you're doing it.  As a student, I use a search engine several times a day.  By using the Swagbucks search engine (which I believe pulls up a google search.  I get the same results), I earn Swagbucks.  I do nothing more than what I would do anyway.

The way I earn the most Swagbucks though, is by doing my shopping through the Swagbucks "Shop" link.  Just about every store I ever shop from (seriously, I almost always find the store I want) is paired up with Swagbucks so that I earn about 3 (and up to 17!) swagbucks per dollar I spend.  Again, I am not doing anything more than my day to day online activities.  Even buying textbooks gets me swagbucks!

There are other ways to earn swagbucks as well, like following Swagbucks on Facebook and Twitter where they periodically post codes that you can enter for swagbucks.

Now, I am a makeup junkie (one of my only girly-girl traits) so I like to save up my swagbucks for Sephora gift cards which probably isn't the most frugal choice but hey, it is free makeup.  If you want to be a good college student though, you can get gift cards for Best Buy to go toward a new laptop, or Amazon for supplies, or even Starbucks for some coffee to help you pull that all-nighter.  Swagbucks is amazing and everyone should be taking advantage of free gift cards to places they love!

If you would like to start earning today, please sign up here.  Swagbucks has an awesome referral program that matches your referrals swagbucks up to 1000.  That means that while you're busy earning those gift cards, you are also helping to support my makeup habit (which I am so very thankful for).  So go do it!  You will be happy you did.  There really isn't any downside to it.

So Far...

I am completely happy and satisfied with my WGU experience!  WGU has exceeded my expectations.  I started January 1st and I have already completed three courses, on my way to a fourth.  Now, by no means am I implying that it has been easy.  I'm glad it is a challenge.  That is what I expect from a quality college.  What I do not generally expect is a school that truly cares about its students and does everything to help them succeed. WGU has been great in that way.  Everyone I have spoken to has been extremely helpful and very accommodating to me and life as a stay-at-home mom.  I love that I am able to work on my own time when my kids are asleep and I can take my exams from my own home.

Courses I have completed so far:

BCC1, QMC1, MYC1

Let me know if you have any questions about WGU.  I am more than happy to help!

Ducks In A Row

Well, it has been just a couple of weeks since I decided to apply to WGU. and it seems like I am ready to go now. My application has been provisionally accepted, financial aid has been submitted and is awaiting packaging, transcripts have been received, and I've spoken to my enrollment mentor twice already.

I have to say I am very pleased with WGU so far and I haven't even started yet. I have attended two other colleges and both had me jumping through hoops multiple times and scrambling to finish all the paperwork before classes begin even though I started the process months in advance. It has been two weeks maybe since my application and I haven't had one problem.  Also, my enrollment mentor has been an absolute doll. Her name is Chelsea and she has been nothing but super nice and helpful in the process. It is nice to feel like I'm talking to an actual human being as opposed to a beaurocratic robot. That has me even more pumped to begin.

I am set to start January 1st. All that is left is accepting financial aid and waiting for my transcripts to be analyzed. I really hope I can wipe out some courses with my previous coursework. I should at least be exempt from some basic English and Math courses. Now for some more waiting...

WGU Readiness Assessment

I got a lot done today.  I added WGU to my FAFSA, I ordered my transcripts, I made an appointment for my WGU entrance interview, and I completed the WGU Readiness Assessment.
I haven't heard back yet but I found the exam to be pretty basic and I'm quite confident I did very well.  If you are worried about it all, I will break down the exam for you a bit.

There are four parts to the exam.  You have 2 hours to complete each part, except the writing portion doesn't seem to be timed.  I finished each part in well under the allotted time (by about an hour and a half), so don't fret too much about that.

The first part is math.  I know math scares a lot of people but I promise you won't have to factor anything or remember the quadratic equation to pass this. Just know your order of operations, how to +, -, x fractions, find percentages, and other basics like that and you will do just fine.

The second part is language arts.  You will be asked to identify which sentence is grammatically correct, active/passive form, to identify the main idea of a paragraph.  Nothing too crazy there.

The next part is writing. You will be asked to respond to a prompt in 200-800 words. Just watch for correct spelling and grammar and you should be fine.  The prompt requires no research.

The last part is more of a survey than anything else.  They want to make sure you are the type of person who will benefit from an online, competency based education.  Just answer the questions honestly and you are done.

Now that you know what the assessment is all about, it should hopefully seem less intimidating.  Good luck!

How To Get Your WGU Application Fee Waived

Sometimes being an obsessive researcher has its perks.  For instance...Western Governors University has a $65 application fee.  While it may be well worth it in the grand scheme of things, $65 is a lot of money to some people (like me).  I would have had to wait at least another month to start if I had to pay the fee.  But I didn't.  Why, you ask?  Because during the research mentioned in the previous post, I discovered that WGU has a great referral program.  If a WGU student refers you to the school by filling out a simple online form, you will receive a code that will waive your $65 fee.  On top of that, the person who refers you will receive an Amazon gift card.  Win-Win. 

Leave me a comment here and I will be happy to refer you.  Then go spend that $65 dollars you saved on some new shoes or tacos or whatever makes you happy.  You earned it, after all.

Why blog about WGU?

I'm the type of person who decides to do something and then obsessively gathers as much information about it as possible.  This is due in part to me needing to be completely prepared for any obstacles I may face before I reach them and partly to me getting very excited about my new endeavor and needing an outlet until I can actually do whatever it is my brain has thought up in a middle-of-the-night-lightbulb-moment.

My most recent endeavor obsession came to me on one of these sleepless nights that happen quite often when infants and toddlers rule your house and life.  I was nursing my baby at around 3am, trying to figure out how I will ever be able to go back to school now that I am a stay-at-home mom of two, and what kind of career I could possibly have that will be flexible enough for me to put my family first without getting fired.  My plan before I became pregnant with Christian was to go back to school for either Nursing or some sort of healthcare career.  My priority has since changed to staying at home with my children until they are in school and enjoying this brief childhood as long as possible.  Long story short, it came to me that teaching would be perfect for me.  I love children, I care immensely about their education, and I would have roughly the same schedule as my own children once they begin school.  I'd heard about Western Governors University and checked out their website once before.  I knew they had a reputable Education program.  There it was.  That lightbulb lit up.  Now nothing could keep me from being up the rest of the night scouring the internet for every nugget of information I could gather about WGU and their Elementary Education program.

The roadblock I hit was when I tried to find blogs written by WGU students.  I wanted to hear some real life experiences from others like me and what I found was less than inspiring.  While I did find a few blogs like this, most were outdated and contained no more than 10 or so posts before being abandoned altogether.  What I gathered from these, though, was that they did all seem happy with their education and experience at WGU. This was enough to make me take the leap and apply to their Bachelor of Arts Interdisciplinary Studies (K-8) program.

This is why I've decided to write my own blog of my accomplishments and trials with WGU.  Hopefully it will help other obsessive researchers decide whether WGU is the school for them.  I also hope it will help me hold myself accountable throughout my studies. 

The journey begins.  Let's see where this road leads...