Hello to anyone taking the time to read through this blog about my journey through Western Governors University Teachers College (K-8 Interdisciplinary Studies). Little disclaimer before I get started: I'm not editing this blog to make sure that I maintain proper grammar, syntax, etc. This is because I'm a husband, father of two, work full-time and I'm about to start school full-time, so I don't have a lot of time to blog, as you might imagine.
The purpose of this blog is that I really enjoyed reading through other students blogs that graduated at WGU and so I wanted to give back to other future prospective students. Secondly, I wanted to have this as a record for any potential future employer that might want to know more about my education experience at Western Governors. Lastly, I wanted to have a record of my own accomplishments to motivate me along the way - when you get to the "I want to stop" wall, you just have to run through it!
The best place to start is to explain why I want to get my teaching B.A at the age of 31. As a young adult I was very immature and didn't take college seriously. Shortly after my freshman year at a community college, I quit school and started working in the computer/tech industry. I was always adept with technology, so I found a few really good jobs and have been in that industry ever since. I always knew that I wanted to have a career where I was really useful to others and so I began to become disheartened working in the computer/tech industry. I bounced around from wanting to be a nurse, police, fire fighter, military, and teacher until about 3 years ago I decided that my calling was indeed teaching - this came after I had been teaching younger kids at church for a couple of years and after developing a few close relationships with teachers. I was a late bloomer, I guess. Since college, I've started a family and now have two kids of my own and my maturity level is such that I'm ready to finish my bachelors and start teaching. Not for any perk, as of right now I get paid more than the average pay of teachers in Texas. I'm willing to take a pay cut to teach. That's the short story of a much longer journey. :)
I'd like to take a moment to explain why I chose WGU over a traditional brick-and-mortar school. This is really simple to explain. First, I love the competency based learning method at WGU. I believe that this is the future of education - I see WGU as a pioneer here. Secondly, WGU is regionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Also, in 2006 WGU Teachers College became the first exclusively online school to receive accreditation from the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Lastly, WGU is non-profit university, so that told me that they care about students graduation rates more than their own profits.
I plan to update this blog after every competency unit (class) that I pass, and also I'll post here and there with general tips and experiences that I have to help current/prospective students. I think this is a good place to end my first blog post. My next blog post will detail my admissions process. Stay tuned and thanks for reading! :)
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