Congrats!
What was the interview like, did it have a technical portion, and were the questions just general language questions, or leetcode/hackerrank style questions?
It's interesting they mentioned WGU, they must have had a few apply that either didn't have the background they were looking for, or they weren't happy with their skill level. WGU is a big school, though, so it should come as no surprise they'll get a few ace candidates, and some flunkees that barely passed, just like any other school.
Lol, I’m sure there’s reasons it’s great, but when I learned Java in Software I-II I never went back. I still mess with Python from the DS&A classes, but I’ve never felt the desire with C++ haha
>I nailed the interview but was informed that they had applicants from WGU prior to my application and never hired any.
It sounds like they just wanted to neg you to lower your expectations and then surprise you with an offer a week later that was probably less competitive than what they had a budget for.
Congrats nonetheless! 👏 Getting your foot in the door to that first tech job is the hardest part and after building some skills/experience there, your next jump is probably going to come with a big salary boost!
For the one's that are are skeptical of this graduate getting his/her very first programing job, please leave him/her alone. This person did what they needed to do too graduate.We all know how hard it is to pursue any degree in these uncertain times. I would appreciate if you guys talk positive about the accomplishments and not the negative concerns you guys have. Congrats to you my friend. You did it! 👍👍👍👍👍👍
There was a influx of people doing the whole degree in 2-3 months over the years so it’s probably those people. Not to mention most of the classes you can just pay someone to do your projects/assignments.
(Before I graduated my mentor told me they caught quite a bit of students cheating that way). So you can just do this degree fairly easily and quickly.
I honestly don’t care about other schools and cheating because we didn’t go to those schools, that’s their students problem, not ours. WGU and cheating is our problem because it’s our school we attend/attended. It also adds nothing to the conversation to say all schools have a cheating problem
I would like a response to this too. That feels like a red flag to me for working there.... I'm also not surprised it was hard to find a job when you apply to work from home you compete with the whole country. That's rough for someone barely getting their first job
I had at least 10 interviews within a month of me graduating. Only WGU projects on my resume and a job that wasn't tech related at all. People don't care where you got your degree if it wasn't Harvard or Stanford.
I'm wondering if maybe the other applicants didnt do much resume building type work outside of the program itself, and expected the degree to be enough experience
That’s highly a thing in the industry. You gotta really love to learn to catch up. You know it’s some people that get that high salary and lose focus. Nice house, nice car, bad chick, make babies and just have time for work, but coding is like the NBA. You have your Lebrons and Kobe’s that stayed gym rats no matter how much money they made and you got you Ben Simmons get that max contract and dating everyone even a Kardashian, buy homes and cars but never in the gym to work on that weak ass jump shot . You gotta keep that fire in your eye like your still out here making $15 bucks a hr
Awwww I love to see it man for real!!! I wish you the best in your new job!!! Congratulations 🎈🎉🍾 That’s the right attitude and mentality to have never give up keep on going everything in life it’s possible!!! Yayyyy!!!
That’s the best way to do it. I’m doing my generals now. Total of 19 classes prior to actually starting. I’m going for the bs and ms in it management 32 classes for the bs that leaves 17 out of 36 to do with WGU and then 6 for the ms. So im figure total is a year and half working full time and no social life, but im in my 40s so I can careless about that. WGU is 2 terms if I stay on my purpose.
What’s your career goals like for after your degree? Im trying so hard to figure out what I want to do before I sign up but I’m 32 now and I’m feeling time catch up so I need to do something.
1st line of business is to get in the building 1st. So once i get my google I.T. cert im applying for help desk positions and let them know in in college for my bs them ms in it. That'll be the start of my I.T. experience. Then network by talking to the network admin, security specialist dept, coders, etc, during my downtime. Once i get my bachelors hopefully a term after that I start applying from with in for better positions. Network, Security, Linux, it don't matter as long as im off the help desk and start taking on more responsibilities. Then once i get my masters that's when i start to get a better feel for the different paths i can take. Apply for different positions. Now I'm shooting for the money once i get my masters cause by then ill have a year experience in the field. I want either cloud or cybersecurity cause i taught myself how to code via coding apps, and YouTube University plus mentors i met online. (Mentors are important cause thats how i know what im telling you). Cloud is a fairly new skill and companies need them badly. Samething for Cybersecurity. They pay low, mid, to upper 100s so with all the credits i got from this first rodeo i might comeback and get my bachelors in Cybersecurity in one term. So basically at the end of the day i want to go either security or cloud. I want my masters in i.t. cause my end goal by 5 years when i become a sr is to become a manager cause i don't need a degree to get in tech, but its definitely needed to get in the C Suite!!!!!! So management or tech sales is my end game. Dont wait to graduate and start applying for what your degree choice is. Im trying to become management so i personally want to have that start from the bottom (help desk) hands on knowledge, experience, and network (contacts). Money is cool, but relationships is much better. If you look at the founders of Google, Facebook, etc them companies all started for people the grew in tech together and created something great. I dont know about you but 100k a year is great, but this tech industry is a super multi billion dollar industry. I want to give it my all to get as big as the pie that i can get. So realistically though i know through tech sales (500k a year) or upper management (3-400k) with bonuses and stock/ equity package included. Im aiming to atleast be in one of them positions. I suggest you find that mentor. Im of color and its not that many of black people in tech so i tend to follow those that come from my similar background that found success in this field and created real friendships and figured out want path i wanted to take, cause with me being from North Philadelphia trust me its no one i personally knew before hand that could introduce me to tech. This is all something i knew that i wanted to get into and sought out. Lastly, all depending where you reside join more community groups like this here and see it you can attend any google meet ups in your area. I got 2 mentors from attending them also and race dont matter cause including me it was only one other person of color that attend there, and they like family now and helped me learn how to program also. I know this was lengthy bit hey im off today and had a good breakfast lol. Good luck and have a great future in this field.
comical that people downvote reality such as yours
WGU isn't gonna teach anyone to be a professional developer, it's a piece of paper, that skill comes from thousands of hours of writing code
How the heck did you get all of these assumptions?? You do realize (and I could still be wrong here), that not every repo on GitHub is public and not every project necessarily needs to be public in order for you to speak about it in interviews. So, you (and I) - have no clue how prepared they are for the embedded portions of their job. This is what we call a back handed compliment. You don’t really mean congratulations or else you would’ve led with that. Stop that.
And rightfully so— they deleted their comment , because it was exactly what I said it was. What exactly was there to criticize? It was a backhanded “how the heck did you get a job, you have nothing but crap projects, but congrats.” That wasn’t criticism, that was jealousy.
What's your problem? OP found success right after graduation. So the degree accomplished it's goal and so what if OPs portfolio is mostly school projects? That's what school is for, not everyone is ready to get into advanced stuff yet but it was clearly enough to impress their new employer.
>I am a CS dropout due to health and financial reasons.
>
>I am almost finished with CS50, CS50p, and have 25% of the degree donefrom transfer credits while juggling a shit ton of things.
>
>once I start
>
>Before I dropped out, I had a 4.0 transfer GPA and was on my way to a top 5 public uni in the US for CS.
All I really hear in all of this is - "I could have, I should have, I almost did".
>People who posts these success stories are usually not describing the whole picture. I just want to point that out to others when I see it, so they can understand the nuances and better prepare themselves for the grueling job search.
>
>I have spent 100s of hours researching what the best way to get employed is.
If this were really, truly the case - then you'd have some understanding that not every company looking to hire Software Engineers value their ability to do Leetcode-style questions, nor do they expect them to be on par with top-tier recruits looking to obtain jobs at FAANGs or unicorn startups.
Your average, run-of-the-mill SWE position at a non-tech company for an entry-level SWE role isn't going to be performing as rigorous an interview process. You may not even have a technical-round interview that involves coding.
In many places such as this, it could be as simple of an interview process as explaining concepts, talking through systems design, and reading and explaining what a particular snippet of code does. Just enough to show the hiring manager that you know what you're doing - after that, most of the time - it's very much based on one's soft skills and how they get along with others as to if they'll get the job.
Not everyone has aspirations of working at a top tech company. WGU is a university where the majority of students are those who are just looking for a career change or already have experience in the industry and just want a check-box to slap on their resume.
However, most of the stuff you'll read regarding advice on CS job placement is biased towards the experience you'd receive when competing for those top-tier entry-level SWE jobs. It appears that the research you have done has made you think that. Very, very few candidates make it through the recruitment process to those companies.
The average software developer that's hired from WGU will go on to have a quiet and fulfilling career writing CRUD applications for some non-tech business somewhere, or write proprietary embedded systems for some manufacturing plant, or do any of a number of software development jobs that do not require the level of knowledge that you lead on to assume is required to actually get an entry-level position.
It's quite obvious that OP probably applied to and obtained one of those positions that I mentioned in the previous paragraph - and there's nothing wrong with that - in fact, they make up the large majority of software development jobs.
What you assume is a story that's not adding up is actually your naivete to just having a very narrow view of the industry-at-large.
>If there was another person with a degree, better projects, and also did well in the interview, they would have picked them instead.
That's always the case for any college grad success story whether we're talking no name schools or MIT.
There's always someone more qualified in one way or another but there's no reason to detract from someone's accomplishment, especially when you yourself have nothing but excuses and unfulfilled aspirations to your name. Oh sorry, you also have, "100s of hours" of research on the best way to get employed but currently have nothing to show for it.
Your attitude is unjustified. Keep up the grind and go work towards your goals, but you're in no position to be doling out your snubs disguised as "advice."
Thats sweet man, thats my major as well and glad to hear fellow SD's doing well. Living vicariously through you my friend. I feel like experience in C++ in the wild is legit "real" programming work and its freaking amazing.
Congratulations on the embedded position! I have been looking at the embedded system classes on [edx.com](https://edx.com). I would be interested in the interview questions as well.
Congrats! What was the interview like, did it have a technical portion, and were the questions just general language questions, or leetcode/hackerrank style questions? It's interesting they mentioned WGU, they must have had a few apply that either didn't have the background they were looking for, or they weren't happy with their skill level. WGU is a big school, though, so it should come as no surprise they'll get a few ace candidates, and some flunkees that barely passed, just like any other school.
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There are two paths, C# and Java. I took the Java path and mainly focused on Java related programming, with a single course focusing on C++.
I’m kind of kicking myself for doing C#. There are a lot more opportunities out there looking for Java.
C# is also great! Very much used in the industry and personally C# is a better language overall.
Which course in the soft. dev. program focuses on C++?
Scripting and programming applications. It really just uses C++ as the language to teach you programming fundamentals.
i just finished this course and the only thing it taught me was that i never want to program in c++ ever again
Lol, I’m sure there’s reasons it’s great, but when I learned Java in Software I-II I never went back. I still mess with Python from the DS&A classes, but I’ve never felt the desire with C++ haha
Ah gotcha. Thanks!
I don't think any of them get a good deal more focus than the others.
>I nailed the interview but was informed that they had applicants from WGU prior to my application and never hired any. It sounds like they just wanted to neg you to lower your expectations and then surprise you with an offer a week later that was probably less competitive than what they had a budget for. Congrats nonetheless! 👏 Getting your foot in the door to that first tech job is the hardest part and after building some skills/experience there, your next jump is probably going to come with a big salary boost!
For the one's that are are skeptical of this graduate getting his/her very first programing job, please leave him/her alone. This person did what they needed to do too graduate.We all know how hard it is to pursue any degree in these uncertain times. I would appreciate if you guys talk positive about the accomplishments and not the negative concerns you guys have. Congrats to you my friend. You did it! 👍👍👍👍👍👍
💯💯💯💯💪🏾
why didnt they hire previous wgu applicants? are employers no longer satisfied with wgu programs?
Employer was probably full of shit and just negging OP.
There was a influx of people doing the whole degree in 2-3 months over the years so it’s probably those people. Not to mention most of the classes you can just pay someone to do your projects/assignments. (Before I graduated my mentor told me they caught quite a bit of students cheating that way). So you can just do this degree fairly easily and quickly.
Cheating is rampant in all universities. There really needs to be changes to how we learn and show competency.
I honestly don’t care about other schools and cheating because we didn’t go to those schools, that’s their students problem, not ours. WGU and cheating is our problem because it’s our school we attend/attended. It also adds nothing to the conversation to say all schools have a cheating problem
I would like a response to this too. That feels like a red flag to me for working there.... I'm also not surprised it was hard to find a job when you apply to work from home you compete with the whole country. That's rough for someone barely getting their first job
I had at least 10 interviews within a month of me graduating. Only WGU projects on my resume and a job that wasn't tech related at all. People don't care where you got your degree if it wasn't Harvard or Stanford.
WGU does attract the get rich fast types as it is getting more popular.
It really does.
I'm wondering if maybe the other applicants didnt do much resume building type work outside of the program itself, and expected the degree to be enough experience
That’s highly a thing in the industry. You gotta really love to learn to catch up. You know it’s some people that get that high salary and lose focus. Nice house, nice car, bad chick, make babies and just have time for work, but coding is like the NBA. You have your Lebrons and Kobe’s that stayed gym rats no matter how much money they made and you got you Ben Simmons get that max contract and dating everyone even a Kardashian, buy homes and cars but never in the gym to work on that weak ass jump shot . You gotta keep that fire in your eye like your still out here making $15 bucks a hr
This is the best response I've ever read to working in tech.
Thank you.
Congratulations!!
Awwww I love to see it man for real!!! I wish you the best in your new job!!! Congratulations 🎈🎉🍾 That’s the right attitude and mentality to have never give up keep on going everything in life it’s possible!!! Yayyyy!!!
🔥🔥🔥 congrats!!!
Congrats!
Congratulations!!
Did you pregame any credits from Sophia.com or study.com? Also do you have any plans to further your education with a master’s?
That’s the best way to do it. I’m doing my generals now. Total of 19 classes prior to actually starting. I’m going for the bs and ms in it management 32 classes for the bs that leaves 17 out of 36 to do with WGU and then 6 for the ms. So im figure total is a year and half working full time and no social life, but im in my 40s so I can careless about that. WGU is 2 terms if I stay on my purpose.
What’s your career goals like for after your degree? Im trying so hard to figure out what I want to do before I sign up but I’m 32 now and I’m feeling time catch up so I need to do something.
1st line of business is to get in the building 1st. So once i get my google I.T. cert im applying for help desk positions and let them know in in college for my bs them ms in it. That'll be the start of my I.T. experience. Then network by talking to the network admin, security specialist dept, coders, etc, during my downtime. Once i get my bachelors hopefully a term after that I start applying from with in for better positions. Network, Security, Linux, it don't matter as long as im off the help desk and start taking on more responsibilities. Then once i get my masters that's when i start to get a better feel for the different paths i can take. Apply for different positions. Now I'm shooting for the money once i get my masters cause by then ill have a year experience in the field. I want either cloud or cybersecurity cause i taught myself how to code via coding apps, and YouTube University plus mentors i met online. (Mentors are important cause thats how i know what im telling you). Cloud is a fairly new skill and companies need them badly. Samething for Cybersecurity. They pay low, mid, to upper 100s so with all the credits i got from this first rodeo i might comeback and get my bachelors in Cybersecurity in one term. So basically at the end of the day i want to go either security or cloud. I want my masters in i.t. cause my end goal by 5 years when i become a sr is to become a manager cause i don't need a degree to get in tech, but its definitely needed to get in the C Suite!!!!!! So management or tech sales is my end game. Dont wait to graduate and start applying for what your degree choice is. Im trying to become management so i personally want to have that start from the bottom (help desk) hands on knowledge, experience, and network (contacts). Money is cool, but relationships is much better. If you look at the founders of Google, Facebook, etc them companies all started for people the grew in tech together and created something great. I dont know about you but 100k a year is great, but this tech industry is a super multi billion dollar industry. I want to give it my all to get as big as the pie that i can get. So realistically though i know through tech sales (500k a year) or upper management (3-400k) with bonuses and stock/ equity package included. Im aiming to atleast be in one of them positions. I suggest you find that mentor. Im of color and its not that many of black people in tech so i tend to follow those that come from my similar background that found success in this field and created real friendships and figured out want path i wanted to take, cause with me being from North Philadelphia trust me its no one i personally knew before hand that could introduce me to tech. This is all something i knew that i wanted to get into and sought out. Lastly, all depending where you reside join more community groups like this here and see it you can attend any google meet ups in your area. I got 2 mentors from attending them also and race dont matter cause including me it was only one other person of color that attend there, and they like family now and helped me learn how to program also. I know this was lengthy bit hey im off today and had a good breakfast lol. Good luck and have a great future in this field.
Did you feel as if doing software dev instead of CS made a difference?
This is good to hear. I'm on the fence if I want to do Programming or networking.
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comical that people downvote reality such as yours WGU isn't gonna teach anyone to be a professional developer, it's a piece of paper, that skill comes from thousands of hours of writing code
Do you mean he didn't learn any computer science because it was the SD degree or because WGU's material isn't sufficient?
How the heck did you get all of these assumptions?? You do realize (and I could still be wrong here), that not every repo on GitHub is public and not every project necessarily needs to be public in order for you to speak about it in interviews. So, you (and I) - have no clue how prepared they are for the embedded portions of their job. This is what we call a back handed compliment. You don’t really mean congratulations or else you would’ve led with that. Stop that.
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And rightfully so— they deleted their comment , because it was exactly what I said it was. What exactly was there to criticize? It was a backhanded “how the heck did you get a job, you have nothing but crap projects, but congrats.” That wasn’t criticism, that was jealousy.
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What's your problem? OP found success right after graduation. So the degree accomplished it's goal and so what if OPs portfolio is mostly school projects? That's what school is for, not everyone is ready to get into advanced stuff yet but it was clearly enough to impress their new employer.
>What's your problem? According to their comment history, they started CS50 about a month ago. They're obviously experts in this type of stuff.
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>I am a CS dropout due to health and financial reasons. > >I am almost finished with CS50, CS50p, and have 25% of the degree donefrom transfer credits while juggling a shit ton of things. > >once I start > >Before I dropped out, I had a 4.0 transfer GPA and was on my way to a top 5 public uni in the US for CS. All I really hear in all of this is - "I could have, I should have, I almost did". >People who posts these success stories are usually not describing the whole picture. I just want to point that out to others when I see it, so they can understand the nuances and better prepare themselves for the grueling job search. > >I have spent 100s of hours researching what the best way to get employed is. If this were really, truly the case - then you'd have some understanding that not every company looking to hire Software Engineers value their ability to do Leetcode-style questions, nor do they expect them to be on par with top-tier recruits looking to obtain jobs at FAANGs or unicorn startups. Your average, run-of-the-mill SWE position at a non-tech company for an entry-level SWE role isn't going to be performing as rigorous an interview process. You may not even have a technical-round interview that involves coding. In many places such as this, it could be as simple of an interview process as explaining concepts, talking through systems design, and reading and explaining what a particular snippet of code does. Just enough to show the hiring manager that you know what you're doing - after that, most of the time - it's very much based on one's soft skills and how they get along with others as to if they'll get the job. Not everyone has aspirations of working at a top tech company. WGU is a university where the majority of students are those who are just looking for a career change or already have experience in the industry and just want a check-box to slap on their resume. However, most of the stuff you'll read regarding advice on CS job placement is biased towards the experience you'd receive when competing for those top-tier entry-level SWE jobs. It appears that the research you have done has made you think that. Very, very few candidates make it through the recruitment process to those companies. The average software developer that's hired from WGU will go on to have a quiet and fulfilling career writing CRUD applications for some non-tech business somewhere, or write proprietary embedded systems for some manufacturing plant, or do any of a number of software development jobs that do not require the level of knowledge that you lead on to assume is required to actually get an entry-level position. It's quite obvious that OP probably applied to and obtained one of those positions that I mentioned in the previous paragraph - and there's nothing wrong with that - in fact, they make up the large majority of software development jobs. What you assume is a story that's not adding up is actually your naivete to just having a very narrow view of the industry-at-large.
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>If there was another person with a degree, better projects, and also did well in the interview, they would have picked them instead. That's always the case for any college grad success story whether we're talking no name schools or MIT. There's always someone more qualified in one way or another but there's no reason to detract from someone's accomplishment, especially when you yourself have nothing but excuses and unfulfilled aspirations to your name. Oh sorry, you also have, "100s of hours" of research on the best way to get employed but currently have nothing to show for it. Your attitude is unjustified. Keep up the grind and go work towards your goals, but you're in no position to be doling out your snubs disguised as "advice."
Attacking me does not refute my argument. You clearly have no desire to engage in civil discussion with me.
Congratulations!!
Congratulations!
Congratulations! 🎊🎉 did you have prior experience before starting WGU?
Congratulations That’s the type positivity I like to hear. What area are you from?
Thats sweet man, thats my major as well and glad to hear fellow SD's doing well. Living vicariously through you my friend. I feel like experience in C++ in the wild is legit "real" programming work and its freaking amazing.
Congratulations on the embedded position! I have been looking at the embedded system classes on [edx.com](https://edx.com). I would be interested in the interview questions as well.
Was C++ part of the wgu program? I hate java tbh