- Will credits earned toward my associates degree and in a semester after that be applicable toward a bachelor’s degree?
- Associate’s degree would transfer for gen ed
- Would need college-level pre-cal or calculus before entry into computer science; Associates would give me entry for software engineering program
- Will work experience?
- Will help with competency but it doesn’t count on its own
- Will have access to all course material at the beginning, including the final exam
- With all that, how quickly can I complete a bachelor’s?
- Completed a FASFA form, but it will be looking at my 2022 tax return, which is much different from my current financial situation. How do I fix this?
- Could I get paid for in full? I have no money.
- I notice the FAFSA forms mention July 1. Does this mean I won’t be able to start until then, or is there some way to start sooner and float until the grant money is released on July 1?
2025-03-05 Called in and spoke with Monica at WGU
- Complete an application
- She answered my questions above
2025-03-05 Received a call while filling out application. Spoke with Sage.
- Complete application
- Contact with financial services 385.428.3104
2025-03-06 Called and spoke to Dana at financial services
- She cannot help without a student ID number
2025-03-06 Called back and spoke to Wilson in enrollment
- Student ID- 012643794
2025-03-06 Called financial services again and spoke to Jennifer
- Can’t start an appeal process until the FAFSA decision has come back
- Ask for “student aid index appeal”
- They can send an email to me ask for supporting document
- She will monitor my account and email me when my FAFSA comes back to ask for the supporting documentation so they can re-evaluate my financial aid
2025-03-07 Received email from Jennifer and filed my appeal.
2025-03-12 Received call from Sage. Casually mentioned that I had credits still at UT but they wouldn’t impact my credit situation at all. She said I had to submit them, so I went to Parchment and paid the $10. I got a confirmation they have been received and a new transfer evaluation that changed absolutely nothing.
2025-03-18 Today is my appointment with a FASFA counselor. Carly called from the financial aid department. She said my application looks good. She will put a rush on it, and they should review within 7 days. Likely to approve or put it in “pending” status while requesting other documents.
2025-03-24 Sage started me on the commit to start documents, which she said do not convey any financial commitment. Once I complete them, I should call financial aid back at 385.428.3104 to let them know they can continue the financial aid evaluation for a start date of May 1.
2025-03-24 Called and spoke to Mick in financial aid. He asked if I completed the commit to start today. I told him I had just completed it. Takes up to six weeks. I asked him how that will work with a May 1st start date. He said my appeal is already rushed and that should still apply. He said to send a reply to the email I received on 3/20/2025 that said they cannot evaluate special circumstances without a start date to let them know I have a start date and that I should receive a reply that it will be rushed. I should call back if I don’t.
2025-04-02 Talked with a lady in financial aid about closing the gap between tuition and my financial aid. She had no resources beyond what I already had seen on their web site. She recommended taking out a loan.
2025-04-04 Had a call with Sage today scheduled at 11:45. She called at 11:57am. She didn’t have much to offer. She said I should apply for scholarships, but that means either pushing out my start date or paying up-front and hoping to get the scholarship to get it back.
2025-04-04 Called back for financial aid and spoke to Bailee. She could send me information to apply for student hardship. She is going to send that over. She transferred me to Ashley with the scholarship team. The hardship scholarship is not for
2025-04-04 Called again for financial aid. Spoke to Alex. She has nothing. She suggested applying for scholarships.
2025-04-08 Called and spoke to Sage who transferred me to scholarships. Sage said before transferring me that they probably couldn’t rush evaluation of my applications. She transferred me to Tim who said he would bump my applications up the chain. He said it may be a week or two before I would hear back.
2025-04-09 Received call from Sage. She asked if I had learned why and how I had been financially cleared. I couldn’t recall what they said about that. She asked if I had loans. That triggered my memory that they said I didn’t have any loans and then guided me through answering the 24-25 financial aid survey declining the loans. I told her they will rush processing of my scholarships. I asked what will happen if those don’t come through. She said I’m cleared, so it will be up to me if I would like to drop. If I drop with my mentor, I will also need to call back to enrollment to get registered for the next start date. She will call back next Wednesday.
2025-04-16 Called to check on scholarship. Had to get transferred from financial aid. (The menu doesn’t seem to have an option for scholarships.) Spoke to Ashely in scholarships and explained my situation, that I am trying to get my scholarship reviewed in time for enrollment on May 1st. Ashley said the quickest I would be able to have it reviewed was 3 weeks. I told her Tim had told me I should expect it to be reviewed within a week or two. She said that isn’t reflected at all in the call notes and that there is no rush on the application review. I asked to be escalated because it seems like Tim has intentionally misled me. Ashley put me on hold for the transfer. Spoke to Brad, manager of scholarship operations. He said he would do “everything he can” to move it along bug never specified what that is. Said my scholarships are in the last phase of review and that he expected it to be in by the end of April, perhaps by my financial deadline of the 22nd. I told him I didn’t understand why I was told different by Tim. He said he believes Tim did not mislead me and genuinely thought the application would have been reviewed within a week or two. I clarified that Tim had told me he would actually expedite the process. He then said he did see that Tim had moved it to the next phase even though the content of our conversation wasn’t reflected in the call notes as I had been told previously by Ashley.
2025-04-16 Sage called and said I should arrange to talk with my program mentor. She still doesn’t know anything about the financial situation (why I have been cleared and what I should do about scholarships). She tried to transfer me to financial services to get more information, but they are closed for a meeting. Will re-open at 1:15pm Eastern. Call 385.428.3104
2025-04-16 Called financial services and spoke to Dana. I explained my situation and asked how I had been financially cleared. Dana said that admissions works with the enrollment counselor to financially clear a student. I told her my enrollment counselor was the one who had said I should call financial services. She said she wasn’t sure where the miscommunication was happening. I asked if she could transfer me to admissions, and she agreed. This got me to Robin. I explained the situation to her. She said I have been rewarded the the Pell Grant for 4,2xx. She asked how I planned to cover the difference. I told her I hoped to get a scholarship and that I couldn’t pay out of pocket. She said she would get my Admissions counselor on the phone to try to find out why I had been cleared. She was unable to get him (got voicemail). She can’t figure out why I have been cleared. She is going to research and call me back.
2025-04-16 Got a call from Casey. She says based on where I attended school, I get a 5% discount. That’s 375. Since I am under 62.50. Discount will be applied to the account later. She said it takes 3-5 days. My account is flagged for the discount. Have enrollment counselor follow up with discount department to find out when it will be applied to my account. Casey suggested I wait for now and says I can be enrolled for up to 45 days before I need to make final payment if I make arrangements. She said I will have at least until the 10th, but I shouldn’t start any classes if I want to do that. Casey will make a note on my account that I owe less than $500 and that I can drop up to May 10th without any financial or academic repercussions.
2025-04-16 I was awarded a scholarship that will cover the difference in my tuition and my grant.
2025-04-23 Sage checked in. She said this will be our last call since everything is in order. She still can’t see my financial particulars, only that I am cleared. She said I can wait to do the requirement verification and app installation on my new computer as long as it arrives and I complete orientation before my start date.
Scholarship application
Review and Submit
What is your current employment status? Not Employed
If there has been a significant change to your income in the last two calendar years, please describe the circumstances here. Please describe any significant expenses you regularly incur here. If these do not apply, please answer with N/A. I was laid off in June of 2024, and I currently have no job and no income. My unemployment benefits were exhausted in late December of 2024. I regularly have to pay housing costs of 150/week for me and my partner, and health and dental insurance cost of almost $270, in addition to other incidental expenses.
From a financial standpoint, what impact would this scholarship have on your education? Closing the gap between my Pell grant and the tuition is the difference between my being able to attend or not.
Please select all that apply in your financial plan for covering tuition and related expenses. FAFSA Grants (Federal or State)
If you selected Employer Tuition Reimbursement/Assistance and/or Military Tuition Benefits in the financial plan above, please describe how much you will receive annually. If selected Other, please describe the source of aid and funding annually. N/A
What is the name of the company with which you are employed? If you are not employed, please put N/A. N/A
Part of the scholarship review process is reviewing past academic history, including past GPA. Is there anything you would like the review committee to consider in reviewing your past academic history? If you do not have any previous academic experience, please put N/A. I have a strong academic history, so I can’t think of anything.
Discuss how your interest in your field or major developed. Describe your experience in the field and what you gained from this involvement. Please provide a minimum of 200 words. I have been fascinated with technology since I was very young. The first time the power of software development became real to me was when I wrote a macro for one of my favorite games to make the game easier to play. This was in 1996. The empowerment I felt was palpable. I continued to write software to solve my own problems and those of others. While I was pursuing my Associates degree, I wrote software to automate reports in the Walters State Office of College Advancement. When I worked in IT for a public school system, I implemented and maintained their first online job application. About 10 years ago, I decided to make software development my career. This was several years after I got my Associates degree in computer science, so I looked for ways to resharpen my skills. This led me to coding bootcamps and self-study which apparently gave me enough skills to build a respectable career. I have been working both in a freelance capacity and as an employee since then and until my layoff last year, completing projects for clients I never imagined I could work with like California Community Colleges, Equinix, and Apple. This transition allowed me to finally escape the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck and build a better life for myself and my family. On top of that, I was able to use my skills for good. I have also done volunteer work, including for the West Seattle Food Bank, helping them manage their web site and move it and their domains to a new platform. I’ve been able to help many other people in chance encounters with the knowledge I have, and I have helped others like myself make career transitions of their own. My career transition into software changed my trajectory and empowered me to take control of my life in much the same way I found code could empower me to solve smaller problems.
When did you know that you wanted to pursue this degree? What makes now the time to pursue or continue your pursuit of your degree? Please provide a minimum of 200 words. I reached a turning point in my career a couple of years ago. I enjoyed software engineering, but I didn’t feel especially competent at it. I had been learning about marketing and had built a project to help others make their own career transitions into software just like I had. This put a new parallel career track on my radar: developer advocacy. I decided to make a career transition and went to a small startup out of San Francisco as their first developer advocate. In practice, most of my work there was in a technical writing capacity, maintaining their documentation and documenting new versions and features released during my short tenure. That company did a round of layoffs, and I was among those affected. I found myself in a difficult situation where I already hadn’t felt competent as a software engineer and had been in a different role for a year and a half. On top of that, I had only limited experience in my new role, which wasn’t even accurately reflected in my title. As a result, finding work has been extremely difficult. I found myself applying for technical writer roles despite having never officially held that title, never having enough experience or confidence to apply for developer advocacy roles, and feeling even less competent as an engineer after my detour. I’m hoping a Bachelors degree will give me both the skills I need to feel competent as an engineer and the credentials to overcome my year-and-a-half move into a different role.
What are your short- and long-term career goals, and how will earning this degree contribute to achieving those goals? Please provide a minimum of 200 words. I spent so much of my 30s pursuing my career goals that my career goals now are very simple: I want a career that is challenging and rewarding. I want a career that acknowledges my skills, capabilities, and experience, an lets me apply those to the task at hand without being micromanaged. I want a career that recognizes me as a human being and understands that my career is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That end is improving my life, so my life goals are driving my career ambitions right now. My life goals are to be able to move freely throughout the world, to develop greater empathy and add more tools to my problem solving toolkit by witnessing how people much different from me solve their problems. Traveling would also allow me to see my parents in Tennessee and my daughter in Seattle more frequently. I want to be financially secure enough that my partner and I don’t have to worry about where we might be in six months or a year. I want to be available for my partner to help her move throughout the world more easily and to have the resources to fill in some of the gaps that her disability leaves in her ability to experience a full life. The important question for me is not about how to further my career but how my career can help me further everything else. That all starts with my short-term goal: getting the job. When I visit job sites today and find a position that might be a good fit, the next thing I notice is the little bubble underneath that says “Over 100 applicants so far.” Having done my research, I know that it’s probably more like “over 1,000.” A degree could give me an edge to rise to the top of that stack of virtual resumes… or more likely to make it through the algorithmic filter that determines which resumes are actually seen by a human being!
Describe the skills and traits you possess that help you overcome obstacles. Please describe an experience or accomplishment that you are proud of. Please provide a minimum of 200 words. I’m resourceful, persistent, and intelligent… or at least intelligent enough to be able to accomplish many things. I find though that intelligence is more like a background process that feeds into and enhances my resourcefulness and makes my persistence more impactful. This trait trifecta has enabled me to accomplish some things that are relatively rare for someone who doesn’t have rich parents, a Rolodex (or “contact list” in the event you’re under 40) full of high-powered business connections met in college, or even just a Bachelors degree from said college (a regrettable fact I hope to change soon, with your help): - I wrote and self-published a book about how to price services as a freelance software developer. - I appeared on a popular podcast targeting software developers to talk about how to freelance as a software developer. - I have written articles for and been featured in popular software developer blogs and even in more mainstream publications like Entrepreneur.com. - I took over organizing for a group of aspiring software developers in Seattle and doubled their membership over a year. We held monthly events which I programmed myself. I also procured sponsorships which paid for our food and meeting space. - I grew my blog for aspiring software developers to yearly traffic numbers of 800,000 unique visitors per year. Over 2,200 people signed up for my email list. - I created a YouTube channel with a goal of producing a video for aspiring software developers on a weekly basis for an entire year. I ended the year with 52 videos on my channel, 1,000 subscribers, and 30,000 hours of total view time. Obviously, none of these projects have propelled me to global superstardom or placed me on any Forbes lists or else I wouldn’t be here today, jobless, trying to procure the necessary funds to continue my education, but I’m still very proud of what I was able to accomplish through a liberal application of old-fashioned grit.
Please submit a professional resume to allow the scholarship committee a more accurate view of your professional experience. Technical writer resume
I certify that all information given on this application is true and accurate at the time of submission. Furthermore, I understand that, although I can apply for several scholarships, I will only be eligible to receive one scholarship offered through WGU. I also understand that if I am selected to receive an award, my name, award details, and place of employment may be used in announcements or articles released by WGU (i.e. graduation, newspaper, etc.). Yes