Alex here today we're going to talk about degree hacking in general specifically at Western Governor's University how you can get a bachelor degree in under a year so I'll talk about that I'll go through some general concepts and some general tips how you can degree hack basically any of these degrees and how you can finish almost all of these in under a year if you truly wanted to so we'll go through what Ace credits are we'll go through how you can kind of accelerate Ace credits we'll go through how you can accelerate courses at WGU basically I'll give you like a full road map a lot of the stuff is things you have heard before but I will try to dive into some new aspects and maybe some new tips as well so we'll go over that and finally I've made a couple new WG I made two WGU Facebook groups I've been saying I will be doing this a long time now and I've decided to finally do it I've made two WGU Facebook groups one is called WGU degree hacking so you guys can join that down below in the description and I might put it in the pin comment as well so WGU degree hacking so if you guys are on Facebook it's very difficult for me to reply to emails to you guys uh cuz I'm very busy but if there's like a Facebook group I can do my best to reply to you guys also you guys can all help each other out as well so I would love there's there is other Facebook groups but I would like to create a Facebook group where you know it becomes quite large and we have a lot of good resources um we can all come up with degree hacking tips for each other so I would love to build that Community with you guys uh and then the other WGU Facebook group is the computer science master's degree and I have actually heard this might be announced as early as Monday somebody on Reddit just some random person is like hey my program Mentor leaked to me that the computer science degree is going to be announced Monday morning or Monday afternoon so if that is true I will try to make a video in real time and upload it the same day because the WG computer science master's degree is huge and I will do that degree with you guys so basically sign up for that group if you're interested in the computer science master's degree uh so you can join one group or the other or both now step number one to accelerating your bachelor degree and degree hacking at WGU and now you don't have to do this with every degree I have heard of some people getting the marketing degree done in 6 months although that would still be quite difficult I always recommend Ace credits American council of education so a lot of you who don't know what Ace credits are these are PL uh credits you can do at places like study.com and at study.com you can do courses really fast so you sign up there and I have a discount 30% off for your first three months which will save you hundreds of dollars if you want to take advantage of that uh study.com is especially helpful if you want to do a tech degree because they have the largest amount of tech classes by far out of any Ace Credit website you you and take all the courses I have in my spreadsheet over at Major mash.com or you can also uh go to the W partner page or uh whatever resource you want to use but I've streamlined it in my spreadsheets for you guys and I'll be coming out with all new spreadsheets as well if you want updated spreadsheets I've made them look a little nicer and I'm in the process of updating them currently so basically You'll Go download that spreadsheet and then you will go through the entire Ace credits and complete all of them and then the uh the certification part will be optional like if you really want to shorten your time at WGU completely then you would do the certifications but the certifications can take you up to like a month each so it actually might be faster to just skip the certification part and just enroll at WGU but if you don't want to risk paying two terms and you don't mind do uh spending a little longer on your degree then doing the certifications would be fine now for example we're in a spreadsheet here and in this spreadsheet uh I'm going to give you an example of how long you should take to complete the courses cuz sometimes you know we tend to procrastinate right I'm guilty of it I'm sure all of you are guilty of it if you don't have structure sometimes you'll just procrastinate a class so if you want structure here I can't give you a timeline for every specific class because we all move at different Paces but when it comes to the general education or business classes at uh at study.com I would highly recommend and this goes for probably any Ace Credit website but study.com I'd probably recommend like three days like really try to hustle and grind it out start to finish You' probably get it done in three days any of those courses so and that doesn't include like the time they take to review your uh exam your proctored exam because at study.com there is proctored exam but it's not live it's just a recording and then they review the recording afterwards so basically from start to finish to the point you submit the final exam about a 3-day process I would recommend so you get three college credits in 3 days which is absolutely amazing like I said 99.5% of the population does not know about this method they do not know how fast you can get a college degree with Ace credits now with the tech classes and the lab classes so tech class tech classes and lab classes like biology with lab chemistry at lab maybe a computer science class with a lab like these classes will take a little longer I would say the basic level computer science courses probably might take you about 5 days start to finish uh more complex computer science courses that have a assignment might take you 7 to eight days perhaps even slightly longer and then lab courses might take you 10 11 days so I think you can complete any study.com class though within 10 11 days this is if you have you know 5 hours a day to hammer out school you know just hammer it out now how would you complete these classes fast you might be like okay these quizzes are taking me forever really you know just think outside the box don't read everything uh unless you think it's really really necessary you know kind of skim the reading as fast as you can take the quizzes open book okay any of these platforms you can take the quizzes open book any of these Ace Credit platforms you know there's you take it open book there's you know it's not proctored um I'm not saying I'm not saying you know sit there and Google the answer I'm just saying you can take it open book you can read the study.com passage which has all the information in it as you're taking the quiz so you can really fly by each quiz within about two minutes if you really wanted to so I didn't think that really needed to be said but like you know you can fly by each quiz in 2 3 minutes each if you know you're doing it open book basically and this is how you can complete a course in 3 4 days does this mean you're not learning the information no if you're skiing the reading material you are learning as you're quickly skimming that okay and also during the open book quizzes one of the best ways I actually learn is by practice tests practice tests are not just to gauge your knowledge guys practice tests in today's world is also you learn I learn from practice tests I learn from quizzes you know it's basically a practice test or a quiz you know it says hey you got the wrong answer and a lot of times it will give you feedback on why that's wrong and if it doesn't give you feedback why that's wrong you can also just go Google it why it's wrong so either way whether it gives you feedback or not practice tests and quizzes are a way of learning it's actually probably my favorite way of learning it's like a fun way of learning it's it's like a game you know sometimes I get bored just reading or watching a lecture I'd rather engage in an activity a practice test or a quiz is a activity okay you are learning as you're doing it okay those are not you know like once again their open book I choose it as a learning activity some people view practice tests and quizzes purely as a gauge of your skill and knowledge when I don't view it that way I view it as a way of learning okay so that's me I take I also take WGU practice assessments open book as well so let's get into the WGU portion now I think I've covered Ace credits you know a decent amount here so WGU is the same way your program Mentor will tell you not to take the practice assessment right away I like taking the practice assessment right away I like seeing what I got wrong and right and whatever I got wrong you know I'd like to go study why I got got it wrong I've also explained the WGU acceleration method in my how to accelerate video and perhaps I will make an update to that video as it's probably like 10 months old now but it's still extremely relevant nothing has really changed from that video so I'll probably Le leave a link to that video in the description so in the WG how to accelerate video I basically go over you know what you can do to accelerate the class basically take the WGU test the practice test right away like I said your program mentors are going to recommend against that uh and some will highly recommend against it now you don't have to take it right away whatever learning method is best for you is something you'll have to decide for yourself right A lot of these things are subjective a lot of these things you have to decide what is best for your pace uh like I can't really you know show you everything you have to decide for yourself what works best for you you if that makes any sense to you guys so for me what works best is taking the practice test right away and I've shown you the method where on the practice test if you study every single question and you study the category that question belongs into you study the category all four answers belong to on most like 90% of WG OAS you'll probably pass the OA if you do that method like you don't really have to touch the book or outside sources if you do that method there's a very high chance you can pass the AA okay WG tries to make the practice test as relevant to the main test as possible now you're not going to see any same questions you're probably not even to see like a similar question but you're going to see questions from all the same categories from the practice test I've explained in my how to accelerate video for example on the accounting degree if you get a question about fifo method you're not going to get a question about fifo method on the main test if you got it on the practice test but what could happen is you get a question about lifo right so what WGU wants you to do is Master each category those questions belong to and if you can do that you can pass the main test think of the practice test as a study guide actually think of the practice test as a big study guide where you can cut a lot of time out like you don't have to read the whole book you can cut a lot of time out by a study guide right study guides are helpful because they tell us exactly what to study right so study guides you can even say are kind of a cheat code I don't think they're a cheat code right like they tell you exactly what you need to know it cuts out all the filler right let's think of a TV show or like an anime show specifically right because anime shows have a ton of filler right there are websites that put put together episode lists that cuts out all the filler like episodes you don't need to watch and it doesn't change the experience at all right so with WGU by taking the practice test and studying the practice test and all the categories of the questions you cut out all the filler that you don't need to know to pass the main test now we get into the performance assessment at WG the performance assessment now in the business courses and the teaching courses and a lot of the non-te courses basically the non- tech degrees the performance assessment most of the time is a writing assignment and you can access writing assignment in a couple days if you have time to write usually if you go to the course resources okay some PE I'm shocked that some people don't know that there is a template for every single writing assignment okay you go to the course resources and there's a template and you just fill out the template you don't have to make a new word document there's a template for every single writing course and then you fill out like the it goes by the rubric like I 2 three like in Roman numerals 3 four like you feel that out so the evaluator knows what you're uh what you're doing and there's a template for every single thing basically you would fill out the question and then you would delete the question after but you keep like the Roman numeral okay and that makes it so much easier it makes it easier for the evaluator and it makes it easier for yourself now if it is not a writing assignment also I'd like to say one more thing okay with the writing assignments there's no failing okay if you don't think he WR wrote enough you don't you don't have to like keep writing a lie you could turn it in and then if they can just send it back to you there's no penalty the only penalty is you get delayed a couple days right but if you really uh if you're scared about failing there's no failing you can get it back like three four times and they just tell you to correct things there's no failing there's nothing to be scared of the only thing to be scared of is wasting like six more days like but if you you can just turn it in and there's no penalty okay do not take that long on the writing assignments look at the rubric okay okay and if you feel like you answered a question on the rubric in four sentences it's probably going to be fine right don't think you have to write too much now yes if you wrote like one sentence for every answer that's probably pushing your luck okay work smarter not harder but don't abuse it too much okay so you know I'd probably say at least three to five sentences every answer probably like one full paragraph but usually you can answer these questions in one full paragraph let's get to the projects in the tech uh the tech degrees so in the tech degrees the best way to accelerate these are Reddit okay you will have the Java courses and other courses where it's like a programming project uh the scripting and programming applications has a C++ project you have the two Java courses which both have projects Advanced Java and uh Java the the mid Java class I'm forgetting the name of it currently I think it's Java fundamentals but these lot of courses in the computer science degree and software engineering degree and other degrees that are in the tech uh the tech degrees they'll have projects that are like programming related you're building something there's the mobile one two the mobile class um so basically go on Reddit and you you'll find at least one good Reddit thread where they fully explain how to pass it follow whatever they did not saying copy their project or anything but follow whatever they did okay they are holding your hand they're giving you advice they're they're telling you the exact steps they took the exact steps they took and yeah you could make a similar project too you can make a similar project to them just do not copy them verba them and basically you will find resources on Reddit on how to pass those technology projects you can also find some great information in the WGU Facebook groups as well although I think the WGU Facebook groups are a little better for passing the tests quicker and passing the writing writing assignments quicker whereas Reddit is much better for having those project uh you know like exactly what people did on projects so that is my advice to you and it's also what I did the video for today guys I hope I helped you in some type of way with this tutorial uh and just kind of explaining every single step of the process from beginning your journey with Ace credits to accelerating courses at WGU and trying to get your bachelor degree in a year or less so it is possible there are many people that have done one term at WGU and graduated some even without Ace credits but if you really want to be safe and not pull your hair out trying to complete 120 credits in 6 months I would highly recommend trying to transfer in as many Ace Credit courses as possible so once again if you liked this video at all please like subscribe or comment or all three when you do that it sends the video to new people and the algorithm is happy and it means a lot to me so more people discover the channel more people discover how to graduate college fast you're not just helping out me you're Al you're helping out other people discover how to hack college so if you do one of those three things like comment subscribe it means a lot to me and somebody else will discover me also guys don't forget about the WG Facebook group that I mentioned earlier in this video it would mean a lot to me if you join them or if you need them so once again guys thank you and please take care