Next month I will take a new role as a software engineer at my work. I've done programming for years but this will be the first role fully focused on it. As a result, I'm interested in shoring up my knowledge in the field, because I am a bit insecure about being self-taught. I've applied to WGU's BS in Software Engineering. In a perfect world I would go to an ABET-accredited school but I'm trying to balance accessibility with quality. The WGU program has a Java or C# track. I think I'll take the C# track since that's one of the primary languages I'll be working with. It also has fewer courses, but on the other hand I have more experience with Java, so it's hard to tell. I don't have to pick yet. I wasn't super worried about the transcript request process. I need transcripts from Durham College, Trent University, Athabasca University, Eastern University, Quantic University and University of the Cumberlands, in order that I attended. Additionally, Durham, Trent and Athabasca will need NACES evaluations. I already sent off my Cumberlands, Quantic (via National Student Clearinginhouse) and Eastern (via Parchment.) I had done a WES evaluation of my Durham and Trent courses in the past, so I hopefully won't need to repeat those (though they were done years ago, do they expire?) I went to log in to WES and unfortunately they have transitioned systems and I need to wait 72 hours for them to update my account. The last hurdle, once I get into WES, is to get a course-by-course evaluation of my Athabasca courses which will probably cost a bunch and take several weeks. I also have the PMP and maybe that will be good for some credits. My goal would be to finish in one year (two terms) or less. I'll use this thread to document my adventure.
Congratulations and good luck! WGU’s BSCS is ABET if you really need it. I suspect we’d find Software Engineering is often non-ABET, even at some high-end schools. Athabasca held US RA (MSCHE) from 2002 to 2025. Maybe you could appeal the request for a foreign credential evaluation there?
I am curious, why do you need another Bachelor's degree? Isn't just a Master's degree in Software Engineering enough to cover the breadth? The University of Arizona offers a Master of Science in Software Engineering, and you might want to bridge to the Ph.D. program later.
It's a good thought, and I've wrestled with the decision. I probably don't need any new degrees at all - my MS in Data Science is techy enough to fit the bill right now, and a PhD in CS/IT/etc., in the future would likely satisfy most HR departments. It's more personal I think, if I want to be a professional software developer I want a degree in software engineering or computer science as most of my peers have. Additionally, it's a lot easier to earn a second bachelor's than a third master's given the amount of transfer credit and the pricing, etc., that WGU offers. On the application front, WES activated my account this morning and I requested a duplicate of my 2019 course-by-course eval for Durham and Trent be sent to WGU. That leaves all sent off but Athabasca. I've put in a request for exemption from the course-by-course eval given that Athabasca was RA when I earned the degree (thanks @Jonathan Whatley for the idea!) I also need to wait for my application to be processed by the MyCreds to request the transcript. MyCreds is a new pan-Canadian initiative. You request access to MyCreds and pay $10 for the transcript, which you can send to an unlimited number of recipients for 365 days. Then you need to request a new one and pay the fee again.
In my opinion, a second bachelor's from Western Governors University doesn't really boost your credentials. I think you should do your Ph.D. in either CS, Data Science, AI, or Software Engineering instead.
WGU is currently insisting I'll need a NACES evaluation for Athabasca, but I've reiterated that based on their requirement that non-RA institutions require evaluations and Athabasca was RA when I earned the degree, that this requirement should not apply. Additionally, they are rejecting the transcript from MyCreds.ca, asking that it be sent directly from the institution. Except that Athabasca issues all transcripts from there, no different than a school using Parchment, with no apparent alternative. Very annoying. Per the email, I've booked a meeting with an enrolment counselor to discuss.
My enrolment counselor is going to follow up on the transcript issues, but could only tell me that at a minimum we could simply exclude the Athabasca credits if I hit a sufficiently difficult roadblock getting them accepted. We shall see. I don't think a large number of those upper-year credits would transfer, but a few definitely would (e.g. Athabasca and WGU both require a critical thinking/logic course.) Athabasca's critical thinking course had the lowest average grade and highest withdrawal rate at the university, I eked out a C+. Outside of that, my average was A-.
As my transcripts have flowed in, I see that WGU sends an identical form letter with the same instructions. So I'm thinking that my first email back to transcript services was probably never read. Additionally, although I sent my Quantic transcript via the National Student Clearinghouse - the only provider they use - WGU believes according to the portal, that this transcript should be coming from Parchment. Quantic does not issue transcripts from Parchment, only diplomas. Since I haven't gotten a confirmation from WGU that my Quantic transcript was received even though the Clearinghouse says it's been sent and the others sent the same day were received, I'm wondering if they just ignore anything that doesn't fit their (incorrect) information. My enrolment counselor (EC) will be calling this week to discuss my progress. I don't expect my NA credits from Quantic to transfer to WGU, but it's infuriating that their semi-automated process is full of incorrect information. Will I also get penalized as a student if they have a test key with wrong answers listed, and no way to challenge?
WGU treats NA and RA at par in transfer credit as far as I know. Remember WGU was originally NA itself: accredited by DEAC in 2001, then additionally RA (NWCCU) in 2003 but they remained DEAC-accredited too until resigning it effective the last day of 2012. That’s left little or no time to write preferences for RA into WGU’s policies and procedures. Fingers crossed!
Honestly, what is the purpose of getting a second Bachelor's in Software Engineering? Nowadays, software is written by Artificial Intelligence with human direction and vision. I instructed AI to write a program and deployed a cybersecurity scanning tool within 2 hours. (https://cyberinspect.zaxtron.com/). Now I am working an enterprise SaaS scale, cyber threat intelligence platform (https://trurion.com/). AI wrote 1GB of code in 5 hours.
@TEKMAN - That's great! Amazing how you can utilize AI to get some of the job done in a fraction of that time. Which AI provider do you use and how much did it cost you for that 5 hours and 1 gig of space? And since we're on that topic, I want to see if Copilot and Gemini can "guide" me through some steps to make my first $1 Million using AI, in 6 months. Let me prompt it now!
@AsianStew - I used ChatGPT (Free Plan) to write a BRD based on what I want in the program. You could do this in Claude AI, too, but ChatGPT makes it easy to read. ChatGPT completed in a minute; either I refine it or save it as an MD file for Claude Code to write the program. I pay $100/month for the Max plan. You could pay $200 if you need more. I set it up so that Claude Code pushes the code to GitHub, and I manually deploy to my VPS through Dokploy Docker. After that, any update, Claude Code will ask for permission to push the code to GitHub. Dokploy is automatically redeployed based on GitHub updates. If I want to read the code, I could open it in Microsoft VS Code or GitHub. I have subscribed to Replit for the entire time, but I have not been able to build anything there. I was told it would be easier, but it is confusing because I can't see the file structure. Also, some people think OpenAI Codex is also better, but I don't have that experience. Claude Code is working great for me so far. If there are any deployment issues, just ask or send screenshots, and the issue will be resolved immediately.
Making money is not about the product you are creating; it is about solving business problems. Customers don't buy products; they buy solutions to their problems. You want to buy an umbrella because it solves your problem of walking in the rain without getting wet. Zoom is successful because it solves many issues that customers have experienced with Skype and Adobe Connect. Also, don't reinvent the wheel; rather, refine the GAPs in existing products or businesses to solve new business problems. Pisscaco once said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
Sometimes it's about education for education's sake. An LLM can write a poem but we still want people engaged in the creative pursuit of poetry. Ditto for many of the other occupations that people believe are made redundant by AI.
@Dustin if you're in no hurry, and you're up for the challenge, how about MS-ECE from Boulder? Some courses are 0.8 units, so the workload won't be overwhelming. I know it's 20k, but if your company pays, I think it's worth the time. I'm actually doing it now (Embedded Systems), and just taking 1 unit per term.
