One Year, One Degree, $5K

I mentioned in a recent status update that I had knocked out a CS degree in a year while still working full-time. Several people asked how I managed that, so here's a quick guide (previously posted on Reddit, updated here).

DISCLAIMER!

Three caveats:

1. This is not a comprehensive CS education, by any means. This approach will give you a good foundation for further studies, but nothing beyond that. My personal belief is that the year detailed below plus a year of demonstrated production (internship, work experience, open-source projects) will give you enough knowledge to successfully compete for jobs, though opinions will vary on this considerably.
2. The actual amount of time required per week will depend on your previous experience and study skills. I had a lot of the background knowledge, so I was able to do this while still working full-time. If you don't have my background, expect to sacrifice work hours (or sleep, or something else) if you want to do this in a year.
3. There are lots of wild claims in this space from "influencers" who conveniently have referral links to everything. I have personal experience with everything I've said here, and I have no affiliation or business relationship with any organization recommended below. That said, you should double-check for yourself and come to your own conclusions before you spend any money/time.

Introduction

This guide describes a plausible path to achieving a CS degree in a year with a total spend of under $5,000. (This approach is also applicable to IT degrees, with some changes.) This guide hinges on three key points:

1. Western Governors University (WGU) is ABET/regionally accredited, fully online, and allows students to accelerate through curriculum as quickly as they can pass the accompanying evaluations.
2. WGU is very generous in the transfer courses it will accept, allowing students to leverage two low-cost college credit providers, Sophia Learning and Study.com (SDC) to knock out around 50% of the requirements.
3. As of this writing, WGU charges a flat $3,995 per six-month term. Sophia is very inexpensive, at $99/month for unlimited classes; SDC is a bit more, at ~$120/course. Three months at Sophia, four classes at SDC, and a single six-month term at WGU come to just under $5,000.

Prologue: Plan and Prep

Before you begin your year, you need to do two things.

Plan: The WGU CS Degree has 38 classes. While the plan below worked for me, transfer credit is a rapidly moving target. Check WGU's Partners Page to confirm which classes will be accepted for transfer credit prior to signing up for anything. Also, go ahead and have the initial enrollment meeting with WGU; it's pretty painless, and you'll want them to evaluate any existing transfer credit before you start taking classes.

Prep: While not strictly required, there are a lot of free resources out there on the Internet, and pre-studying the relevant material will make your year much less stressful (and potentially less expensive). Some recommended curricula:

• ?Java (java-programming.mooc.fi)
• Linux (learning.lpi.org)
• Net+/Sec+ (professormesser.com)
• Discrete Math (discrete.openmathbooks.org)
• Computer Architecture/Operating Systems (www.nand2tetris.org)
• Version Control (github.com)

Months 1-3: Sophia Learning

Sophia Learning is your starting point. We're starting here because the cost of Sophia is relatively low ($99/month), so this serves as an inexpensive barometer. If you can successfully complete about 5 classes a month at Sophia for three months, then you likely have the aptitude to knock out the WGU curriculum in a six-month term. If you struggle, you'll know you need to either plan more time for schoolwork, or allocate more money to give yourself an extra term.

At Sophia, we're going to knock out the following courses over three months:

Month 1:

• Long: English Composition (ENG1001)
• Medium: Communication (COMM1010), U.S. Government (HIST1020)
• Short: Humanities (VISCOMM1001), Physical/Human Geography (HIST1010)

Month 2:

• Long: Calculus (MATH1040)
• Medium: Science Lab (SCIE1051), Health/Nutrition (HLTH1010)
• Short: Intro to IT (CS1001), Web Development (CS1005)

Month 3:

• Long: Statistics (STAT1001)
• Medium: Data Management (CS1011), Programming (CS1101, CS1100)*
• Short: IT Leadership (BUSI1013), Network Security (CS101)

Short classes are very straightforward, typically having 1, if any, assignments requiring a human grader. Mediums are a bit more complicated, often with 2-4 assignments requiring a grader, and Long classes are similar to Mediums but more extensive. I've broken them up to space out the work, but feel free to take them in any order you choose. (Several classes also have several options for credit, so check the Partners page and feel free to substitute accordingly.)

Once complete, submit your transcript to WGU to get your transfer credit evaluation updated, and move on. You should be at 16/38 courses with credit.

*CS1100 (Intro to Python) is not on the official transfer list, but many people, including me, successfully received credit for it from WGU if CS1101 (Intro to Java) was also taken.

Months 4-5: Study.com (SDC)

SDC is optional. The experience here is inferior to Sophia; it costs more ($120/exam instead of a flat fee, though it drops to $75 for your third exam+ in a month) and the courses are padded out with SIGNIFICANTLY more busywork. The only upside is that the exams/assignments are much easier. If you cruised through Sophia in 6 weeks or less, you're probably safe to skip SDC and take the relevant courses at WGU. If not, SDC gives you a buffer; the four courses recommended here are fairly challenging at WGU, so taking them in advance avoids potential sticking points.

Month 4:

• Data Management Applications (CS204)
• Discrete Math I (MATH108)

Month 5:

• Advanced Data Management (CS303)
• Data Structures and Algorithms I (CS201)

Once again, submit transcript and get your transfer credit evaluation. Keep in mind that WGU needs to receive the transcript no later than 30 days before you start your term. Therefore, you should aim to have all SDC material complete by the third week of Month 5 to allow time for grading. When done, you should be at 20/38 courses complete. This is your final Transfer Credit Evaluation update, so triple-check to make sure everything is checked off before moving on.

Month 6: Halftime

This month is your final chance to back out before you're committed. Other than that, not much this month except for the final admin steps to begin at WGU. Once you are assigned a mentor, set up a meeting with them ASAP - they can only open four classes at a time, so you want to let them know early your plans to accelerate through the term.

Month 7-12: WGU

The home stretch! At this point, you should be very familiar with online learning so getting used to a third system shouldn't be too much trouble.

WGU has two types of assessments: Online Assessments (OAs), which come with a practice Pre-Assessment (PA), and Tasks (also confusingly called "performance assessments"), which are projects submitted for a grade. Each class requires either a passed OA, or 1-3 completed Tasks.

For OA courses, you want to take the PA first as a pre-test. Don't look at the answers when complete; just get a feel for the questions and what you're expected to know. Once you do that, go study the course material with that in mind. Take the PA again once you think you've grasped all the concepts. Repeat until you're about 80% confident, then take the OA. If you pass, great. If you fail by a little, study a bit more and try again; if you fail by a lot, then meet with a course instructor (and think hard about whether acceleration is right for you).

For task-based courses, use the tasks as a guide for studying. When completing the tasks, follow the requirements outline EXACTLY; it's monotonous and repetitive, but each requirement section is evaluated independently so you want to make it easy to the evaluator to check the box. A lot of the requirements are vague; fight the temptation to make it super detailed to cover every contingency and just submit your best guess. Either you're right, or you can adjust based on the evaluator's feedback. You have unlimited submissions for Tasks! Use them.

Finally, the below order is just a guide; your mentor will determine the order you take classes. I recommend the below if your mentor asks for your feedback, but it doesn't matter too much. Also, I highly recommend searching Reddit for each course number when beginning a course, as there's almost certainly multiple threads of people who have written up a detailed guide.

Month 7:

• Version Control
• Fundamentals of Security
• Linux
• Business of IT

Version Control and Fundamentals of Security are very easy starter courses to give you some quick wins. Linux is moderately challenging if you've never used Linux before, but not too bad. Business of IT is the only "hard" course this month; the material is dull and the third-party software (used only for this class, thankfully) is flaky, so build in some buffer time around the exam.

Month 8:

• Discrete Math II
• Technical Communication
• Ethics in Technology

Discrete Math either clicks for you or it doesn't, really. (It's discrete!) The only advice I can offer is try changing modality if you're struggling to grasp it; I found the textbook pretty poor, so check the textbook I linked above, or there are several good Youtube tutorials. The other two classes are both very straightforward and a good brain break after DMII.

Month 9:

• Java Fundamentals
• Java Frameworks
• Java Back-End Programming

Now we get tough. Java Fundamentals is mostly a repeat of the Java material from Sophia, but Frameworks is a huge jump in complexity. It's a lot to take in that's not very well signposted. I highly recommend that you build a sample Java webapp in Spring Boot before trying to tackle the Task here, and again (incorporating SQL) before the Task in Back-End Programming.

Month 10:

• Advanced Java
• Software Engineering
• Software Design

Advanced Java is much less of a jump compared to the earlier Java classes, so this month is a good bit easier. Software Engineering/Design are somewhat misleading - they're writing-heavy courses that focus on the "theory" of software. A lot of the material is dated, unfortunately, so just write what's expected and move on.

Month 11:

• Computer Architecture
• Operating Systems
• Data Structures and Algorithms II

CA is the most "mile-wide, inch-deep" course at WGU, so don't be too daunted by it. You need to learn a lot of concepts and vocabulary, but once you do, the questions are generally fact-based. OS is more of the same; a little more in-depth but most of the material is introduced in CA. Finally, DSAII is more of a coding "final exam" than an algorithmic assessment, so keep that in mind and don't over-focus on optimizing the algorithm.

Month 12

• Artificial Intelligence
• Capstone

I've paired these two because the final AI task requires you to design a machine learning project, and the current capstone requires you to execute a machine learning project. With just a little extra work, you can complete both tasks in parallel, leading to a significant time savings.

Conclusion

You're all done! If you got this far, congratulations..now the REAL work begins. Feel free to message me if you have questions, and I'll try to help as I can!