 how to get a BS in software engineering and as little as six months at WGU, which stands for Western Governors University. That's what this video is about. If you appreciate me doing this type of content, go ahead and gently tap that like button and let's jump into it now. In this video, we are gonna be answering questions like is a software development degree from WGU worth it? How long does it take to get a software development degree from WGU? Can you do it in as little as six months like people claim on the internet? And overall, I'm gonna talk about why it might be a good option for you or why it might not be the best choice. And I'm gonna be dropping some massive secrets in this video that before now I've only revealed to consulting clients and I'm gonna walk you through step by step exactly how to do it and it created a resource that is going to make it ridiculously easy. It's basically a cheat sheet. So before I start this video, I'm going to assume that you've already chosen the school as well as the degree that you want to get. And in this particular case, I'm gonna be using the example of WGU and getting a software development degree. Now there are other alternative schools where you can do this accelerated route and I talk about them in this video right here. So definitely check that out. But assuming you've already chosen those two things, the first step you wanna do is to go ahead and transfer in all of your existing credits to WGU. So you wanna get your transcript together and when you're doing this, you really wanna get creative with it because there are a ton of different things that you can transfer in. This list includes but is not limited to certifications, classes you took during high school, APIB classes, classes you took during college if you took maybe one semester or something like that, work experience and military experience. So yeah, make sure you talk with the counselor and go over what experience you can transfer in. Now I did create a cheat sheet spreadsheet for you that actually has all of the classes that you have to take for this particular degree listed. I will put that down in the description and the pinned comment below. Now once you transfer all of these classes in, you are going to get a list of classes that you have to take back. And at this point, you want to move on to step number two, which is use third-party companies in order to test out of the additional classes. Now you might be thinking, hey, WGU is an accelerated university. You can get this stuff done really quickly. So why would I take these classes outside of it? Well, the reason is because you can get it done even more quickly by taking these third-party classes and on top of that, it's much more affordable. And for the BS in software development, you do have to take about 34 classes. Now, even if you're working, you got a family, you're super busy, et cetera, you can still relatively easily knock out about one class per week. And many students that I have recommended this to have knocked out many classes in a single week, right? So in a lot of cases, especially the easier classes, you can get done with them in like one day. The big thing here is you just need to manage your time, right? Try to dedicate a certain amount of time every single day to knocking these classes out. Now, the three companies that people typically use the most are going to be Study.com, Straighterline.com, and Sophia.org. In my experience, the best one is Study.com. That's the one that I recommend. And on that cheat sheet, you will see all the classes that link from WGU to Study.com. And if you click on the link, it'll take you directly to the Study.com class. However, there are still a few classes that Study.com doesn't offer that either Straighterline or Sophia do. And I have those listed on the sheet as well. So again, this is basically like a cheat sheet. It makes the entire process ridiculously easy. So once you finish these classes, you're gonna wanna go ahead, transfer all of them in, and then you're gonna get a list back of the remaining classes you have to take. Once you get this list, what you wanna do is move on to step number three, which is pre-study all of those classes. Now, the reason that you're pre-studying is because you do not wanna have to be enrolled in WGU for more than one or two terms at max. And the way that you can do that is by pre-studying the classes before you actually enroll. So out of the classes that are left, there are many different options to do pre-study for. Some of the best resources I have found are the WGU subreddits. So WGU has a subreddit on its own, and then a lot of the time, they will have subreddits for the individual degrees as well. And on those subreddits, people will discuss their best advice for studying these classes, taking the classes using Study.com, Sophia, or Straighterline, and also how to pass the tests. Oh! There's also tons of free resources online as well. You can check out, there's YouTube. Khan Academy is a great resource as well. Sometimes there'll be some really good classes you can take on sites like Udemy, and those are very cheap. A lot of the time they're like, you know, 10 to $20. And if you're a textbook type person, you can order an old textbook that's like three to five years old for something like 10 or $20 as well. So finally, after you've pre-studied all these classes, you're gonna move on to step four, which is enroll in WGU and knock the classes out as fast as possible. Now, software development degrees take on average about four years if you do it full time. And there are many reports on the internet of people getting through these degrees in much shorter periods of time. Oftentimes it's two and a half, two years, sometimes even as low as six months. Oh! But realistically, if you're a normal person that has a busy life and you don't have any previous experience, you can still probably get it done in around two years. And also while you're enrolled, make sure to take advantage of the WGU instructors, especially for the more difficult classes like software development capstone or the IT application course. All right, now I'm gonna jump into my computer and give you an exact example of how you would do this. All right, so we're back on the trustee spreadsheet. And as you can see, we have all the classes you have to take. And on top of that, we have the certifications and certificates that you can transfer in as well. So let's just give an example down here. Let's say that you transferred in several classes. So you took one semester of college, maybe you took some AP classes in high school and on top of that, you decided to knock out the certifications as well. So as you can see here, you knocked out English and math because you took the AP classes when you were in high school. And then on top of that, you took one semester at community college and you knocked out communications, arts, economics and computer science. And then you went a little bit further and you knocked out some of these certifications as well. So you would go ahead and transfer all of those classes in. And then you would move on to the next phase, which is the test out phase. So in this part, you would start testing out of all the classes using study.com, straighter line and Sophia. And as you can see, you are able to test out of most of these classes. So after you got done with that, you would go ahead and transfer all those classes in and move on to the next phase, which is to pre-study the remaining classes. So as you can see here, there aren't that many classes left. There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 classes left. So you'd pre-study all 10 classes. And when you were done with the pre-study, you felt confident about it. You would go ahead and enroll and knock those classes out as fast as possible. And doing it this way, it is very possible to knock all of these classes out in one term. Now my friend, Josh Matacor took this to the extreme. He actually took the hardest degree that WGU has to offer, which is computer science. And he knocked it out in two months. So it's definitely possible to only be enrolled at WGU for six months. And in terms of the total time it takes for you to knock the classes out, study everything, et cetera, you can definitely do it in under a year. Now, by the way, if you appreciate me using this video and you want to save a little bit of money using study.com, go ahead and do Shane Hummus during checkout. You'll save 30% on your first three months with study.com. And you'll also help the channel out a little bit when you use that coupon code. If you wanna learn more about WGU and whether it's worth it or not, definitely check this video out right here where I go over all the pros and cons of WGU and whether it's worth it for you or not. But with that being said, this degree gets a big thumbs up from me. Definitely not gonna be for everybody. It is online, it's remote. You have to sort of be somebody who can motivate yourself. You're also not gonna be around a bunch of other people. It does suffer when it comes to network. But overall, WGU is an awesome school. I've recommended them to quite a few people. It's not perfect for everyone, but it is perfect for a lot of people that I talk to. So yeah, check that video out right here. Gently tap the like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera. Especially if you went to WGU, definitely comment down below. We wanna hear your thoughts on it, whether it's positive or negative. And I will see you next time.