How to Complete Your Master's Degree in One Semester at WGU !!!!

How I Completed The MCSCIA (Master's Degree) in 1 Semester!!!

How I Completed the CEH in 14 Days! & the CHFI in 10 Days (Located in the Appendix Section) 😉

How to Complete Your Master's Degree in One Semester at Western Governors University (WGU) !!!! by Blake Curtis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginaldblakecurtis/. 

In short, you can do anything with this content as long as there is an attribution/link back and your modification is shared with the same or compatible license. :-) Use this citation format: How to Complete Your Master's Degree in One Semester at WGU. Blake Curtis, LinkedIn.

Background

First off, this approach may not work for everyone, but I highly suggest the methods proposed in this quick reference document. Additionally, this strategy allowed me to finish the program in 10 weeks!!!

I work in Information Security as a Risk Analyst and Systems Auditor. My primary activities consist of creating and architecting security/compliance programs for researchers and private investigators. Many of these programs are subject to statutory and regulatory compliance and stipulate the adoption of governance and control frameworks.

I tell you this because every day I facilitate the creation of safeguards/countermeasures and assess the effectiveness of security controls that span numerous frameworks. Therefore, most of the material and even scenarios (performance assessments) were very familiar to me. However, my approach is not solely reliant on experience, but more so a straightforward and repeatable approach towards completing your assignments and beating the evaluators at their own game. So, let’s get started!

Passing Objective Assessments with Ease!

Always Take the Pre-Assessment First!

You don’t know, what you don’t know. I started the program on April 4th and my best friend kept challenging me to go ahead and take the pre-assessment for Information Security and Assurance – C725. Like many of you all, I was extremely nervous and anxious, but I just went ahead and went for it. Surprisingly I passed the pre-assessment. But, here’s the thing…. even if you pass you still need to prepare for the actual objective assessment. Therefore, I developed a few steps to help you prepare your objective assessments regardless if you fail or pass the pre-assessment.

Step 1: Review Your Weaknesses

It doesn’t matter whether you failed or passed the pre-assessment. The goal is to ascertain your level of knowledge and determine where you need to focus your studies. I call this “gap-studying”, although I guarantee you someone has beat me to it…lol. You will need view your coaching report in print view and go through each question one-by-one and understand why the correct answer is right and why the incorrect answers are wrong.

Make a Quick Reference Guide (QRG)

1. Go through each question one by one and look up the definitions for each distractor and correct answer (key). Start populating your study guides with tools like OneNote, Evernote, Notepad++, or my personal favorite Anki!
2. ⚠ Don't shortcut it, research the wrong answers, trust me it will help you understand what you need to focus on most in the course material.⚠
3. Next, go through the course material, study your weaknesses and answer the questions at the end of each section. Add these questions to your QRG too

Review Course Notecards

After I’ve made my QRG, I go through the notecards for each chapter just to assess my gaps. If I run into notecards that I have a hard time remembering, I add them to the QRG as well.

Create Your Own Practice Tests! (Optional, but recommended!)

I cannot stress this statement enough. Do not rely solely on your memory to get you through the actual exam. I strongly suggest utilizing the printout from your coaching report, creating notecards in an application like Anki, and focusing on the incorrect answers. When creating your notecards, create detailed explanations to understand the rationale for the wrong answers. Take a look at an example of my notecard for an unrelated assignment.

Notice how I took time to explain the rationale for the wrong answers. You could even take this a step further and create separate notecards for the wrong answers. Since WGU will likely test you on these during the actual exam, I want you to ask yourself the following questions:

• Why did they use these specific distractors?
• How are these distractors related?
• When would these distractors be correct"? 

Step 2: Prepping for The Objective Assessment

Now that you've created your QRG and/or custom notecards, it's time to review your notes and prepare for the exam. This part is straightforward. Scroll through your guide while hiding the answers and answer each question aloud or in your head to see if you're correct. Alternatively, you can use your custom notecards and leverage Anki's spaced repetition system to prepare for your test. Spaced repetition learning is excellent for those who don't like reviewing the same notecards repeatedly. For example, suppose you know the answer to several notecards and you're tired of looking at them. In that case, Anki's algorithm ensures that you are only presented with notecards that you don't perform well on. Below, you'll see an example of Anki's self-grading system. Anki leverages this grading system to determine when you should review a card based on your forgetting curve. For more information on spaced repetition learning and the forgetting curve, refer to Spaced Repetition: A Guide to the Technique | E-Student

Know the Wrong Answers Too!

Don’t just focus on knowing the right answer. Understand why the distractors are wrong too. But why Blake? Why in the hell would I be concerned with the wrong answers? I’ll tell you. Because those same “wrong answers” will be “right answers” in other questions on your actual exam! I used to focus on just knowing the right answers too and I used to be horrible at taking tests when I was younger. So, trust me when I say this is probably one of the smartest things you can do for two main reasons:

1. You’ll actually learn the material and pass the exam

2. This will prepare you for similar exams and you will be able to easily identify wrong answers.

Step 3: Take the Objective Assessment

Now that you’ve built up all that confidence and you are able to identify the wrong and right answers, go ahead and schedule the exam now vs later. The beautiful thing about WGU, is that you can literally take your assessment in 30 minutes at any time of the day.

I’ve personally found that scheduling my exam as soon as I feel “somewhat” confident made me grind for the next 30 minutes to get my head in the right space for the assessment. Seven assessments later, and I guess the strategy is working pretty well huh!?

I strongly urge you to try these methods. I can honestly say that I did not read any course material in the master’s program except for Secure Software Design, because I had absolutely no experience in that domain.

Passing the "Dreaded"😊 Performance Assessments

Ok, I get it, no one likes writing papers, but I promise I can help you attenuate that anxiety with a few simple steps. They are assessing competency and ensuring that you can articulate your thoughts onto a particular medium in a succinct and clear manner. From my personal experience, writing papers was extremely difficult in the past. You don’t have to take my word for it, but at the University of Phoenix, I wrote over 105 papers and some of the instructors were extremely strict for a simple punctuation error. Ok, enough of my rant, let’s get to it! 😊

Lead the Horse to Water

You’re going to have to spell it out for these people. That means that you will need to create your outline based on their grading rubric. They are not going to take the time to pick through your paper to see if you met their assessment criteria. Let me show you how I construct my paper.

Step 1: Breaking Down the Rubric & Requirements into Actionable Tasks

Examine the rubric for HAP2 Task 1: Cybersecurity Management I – Strategic

You need to use the Requirements & Rubric to Create Your Outline & Objectives. Let me show you how. First, I label the requirement as so….

Requirement Describe both the physical vulnerabilities and physical threats that put the security posture of Psinuvia Inc. at risk. Provide details from the attached “Independent Security Report,” including how each vulnerability or threat is negatively impacting the security posture of the company.

Next, I create assessment objectives based on the same criteria the evaluator uses to grade our assignments. For example, look at the “Competent” section in the picture above and break it down into questions that you can use to grade yourself. For example, take a look at the following:

Under Competent, it states “The submission describes both physical vulnerabilities and physical threats that put the security posture of Psinuvia Inc. at risk”. We need to break this down into easily digestible questions so we can only write what’s necessary and give the evaluators what they want. Check out the example below

Questions:

• Did you describe physical vulnerabilities that put Psinuvia at risk?
• Did you describe physical threats that put Psinuvia at risk?

Your end-product should resemble the following:

__________________________________________________________________________

Requirement Describe both the physical vulnerabilities and physical threats that put the security posture of Psinuvia Inc. at risk. Provide details from the attached “Independent Security Report,” including how each vulnerability or threat is negatively impacting the security posture of the company.

Questions:

• Did you describe physical vulnerabilities that put Psinuvia at risk?
• Did you describe physical threats that put Psinuvia at risk?

__________________________________________________________________________

Step 2: Understand the Assignment

Now that you’ve created your outline and you know what the evaluator is looking for you need to get a better understanding of the assignment so that you can actually have something to write about. 😊

Review the Scenario/Overview

Your goal is to understand the problem, the proposed solution, and why the solution is appropriate. I use a reading method called SQ3R which stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Let’s face it…. some of the assignments have pages upon pages of material that we all have to read to gather a complete understanding of the problem. As a systems auditor, I’m faced with the same issue every week. But don’t sweat it, here’s a quick way you can tackle massive amounts of reading with ease.

Survey = Creating an Outline of The Content

Don’t laugh, but I literally only read the first paragraph of any material and simply read the first sentence of each paragraph until I finish that section. The first sentence is the limited topic and the author’s controlling idea (opinion). This lets you know what the subject is about and what to expect if you keep reading. Surveying or scanning the material allows me to quickly understand an overview of the problem.

Question = Make sense out of the material

Now that I have a general idea of what I’m about to read, I know where to focus my time and energy. As you start reading a paragraph, make quick bullet points of the main problems. This will assist you in creating your own why, when, where, who, what, and how questions. This method ensures that you don’t get writer’s block.

Read = In My Opinion, “Optional”

Typically, I only read material that it is very relevant to my career or if it is very interesting to me, therefore…. well you catch my drift…lol. I’m not about to read 35 pages of fluff just to figure out the top ten things wrong with the assignment. Instead, I look for keywords like wishes, wants, considering, fails, tries, and more to identify the core problems.

Review

This is where I take all of the bullet points I created for the overview and then add them to the outline I created in step 1. Each bullet point/problem should have a home in the rubric. If it doesn’t, then it is probably not relevant or conducive to the evaluator.

Recite

This step is good if you are taking notes from your reading to take an objective assessment but not if you are trying to draft a paper for your performance assessment. Performance assessments typically introduce a very specific issue that they want you to solve. Although the recite step is great for self-learners preparing for other types of exams. 😊

For more information on SQ3R, I totally recommend you all look at The Science of Self-Learning: How to Teach Yourself Anything & The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition: Advanced Methods to Learn, Remember, and Master New Skills and Information from Amazon. These are one of the few books in my life that I’ve actually read from cover to cover. Additionally, these books put me in the right headspace while going through the master's program.

Step 3: Gathering Your Resources/References

WGU does have a few good resources in the Course Information section of your assessment. Many students such as my best friend say that the course instructors may have additional resources. However, here’s my advice on where and how to obtain resources to help you throughout your journey.

Reddit 😊

First of all, Reddit is the number one recommended source that I can provide you. It helped me out tremendously and there are tons of other students just like you and I who are dealing with the same issues with these assignments. Surprisingly, everyone also exercises a fair amount of tact and professionalism when sharing their thoughts and ideas.

IT Resources

The content in WGU is pretty good, although as an IT professional you are probably already fairly resourceful. Here are some additional resources that I use specifically for performance assessments

Resources for compliance, legal, policies…etc.

• https://www.sans.org/security-resources/policies
• https://csrc.nist.gov/publications (this should be your go-to source)
• isaca.org
• OWASP.org
• ISC2.org
• https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/
• https://www.law.cornell.edu/ (for the legal stuff)

IT-specific training resources

• https://www.pluralsight.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/learning
• https://www.oreilly.com/
• youtube.com (yeah that’s right good ole YouTube!!!)

I’m simply summarizing some resources you can leverage at your own disposal, however, please do not view this as a complete list. Don’t forget to reference certification guides too. There is a ton of useful information there too.

Social Media (Well, Just LinkedIn)

I’m not big on social media at all, but LinkedIn and LinkedIn Learning have been extremely helpful for me. I also suggest looking for other students that are in your same program or have already completed it. Similarly, in the same way, you found me. 😊

Draft the Damn Paper & Stop Procrastinating

Listen everyone, it’s not going to bite you, I promise. Well, you’ll probably get bitten once or twice from the evaluators 😉. Like I said earlier, WGU is simply trying to obtain your level of “competence” on the subject matter. With this in mind, as long as you write against the grading rubric & the requirements and ask yourself the questions you created earlier in Step 1, I promise you’ll be fine.

Don’t Sweat the Resubmissions

So, my best friend and I use two different approaches. He will overwhelm them with tons of legitimate material, so they don’t have a choice to send it back. The approach is very sound and has worked for him. However, I’m a path of least resistance guy. Once I got a whiff of how strict they were on grading papers, I started to write in an extremely concise manner and gave them very straightforward and focused submissions. Don’t get me wrong, all objectives were met, but I did not add any extraneous graphics, charts, plans, or processes unless absolutely necessary and conducive to the paper.

My strategy, if you think that more is needed, just don’t. Let me repeat that…. If you think that more is needed to meet the objective, just don’t. But, Blake “why would I not just give them everything I can so they can’t return my paper for review?”. Here’s my simple and straightforward answer: “The review and resubmissions help you understand exactly what is missing!”

Why would you spend hours of your time and sanity to add to parts of your paper that may not contribute to your grade at all? I mean we just get a pass or fail folks! If you’ve tailored your paper to the rubric, created your assessments objectives, and understand the problem; you’ll be fine. Turn it in and see how well your approach worked for you. If you only had one or two areas you needed to improve, then you did pretty good and have a solid understanding of the material. If you have multiple problems, then your approach needs improvement.

No matter how good you think your assignment is, don’t go thinking that a random evaluator won’t find “something” wrong with it or ask you add something that may not seem useful at all. Remember, you are writing your papers for them, not for you.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that I put in some ridiculous hours to study during this program. I literally studied for 8 to 12 hours on weekends and maybe 4 to 5 hours every day. Funny thing, is that I finished my last four courses, including the Capstone in the same week. There’s a funny story of why I did this, and I’ll mention that at the end.

Tips

Any classes that only have one type of assessment should be added to your current term. WGU is constantly improving its program and adding more tasks and assessments to their courses. Be proactive and identify all classes that only have one assessment and knock those out first. Especially the assessment objectives. If you’re not careful and don’t activate the easy classes, you could wind up with double work for taking too long to complete your program (although there’s no such thing 😉)

The Funny, but Not So Funny Story

After spending all of Labor Day weekend tattooing my brain with CHFI material, I was ready to take my exam. I scheduled my exam, drank a ton of coffee and was more prepared than ever. After I entered my voucher code, the Proctor attempted to login in with their proctor ID several times. They stated that something’s wrong with the voucher and that they would be unable to continue. The folks didn’t even try to contact EC Council or WGU over the phone. So, I’m extremely mad, right? I just took off half a day of work and wrecked my brain with study material. More importantly, I’m totally lit off a triple shot of espresso! Lol, 😊 So I send a “nice” lengthy and tactful email to WGU and EC Council. Meanwhile, I’m still extremely jittery from all the caffeine.

So out of frustration, I decide to go ahead and take both pre-assessments for Cybersecurity Management Strategic and Tactical. I didn’t even care if I passed; I just need to put this caffeine and frustration to good use lol. Surprisingly, I did pass. I actually felt like my day wasn’t wasted then lol. So, I went ahead and created my Quick Reference Guides for both exams and took one after another on the following days. That weekend, I was finally cleared to try and take my CHFI exam again. This time everything worked, and I successfully passed the exam. I’m very hype now, and all I could think about was going ahead and getting a head-start on the Capstone. Within two days, I finished the Capstone. Honestly, I was so motivated from day to day by constantly pushing myself. I’m so glad it is over though, and this is probably the hardest I’ve worked for anything during this short amount of time.

I hope this strategy helps someone out there. Always feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you have any questions about how to approach these assignments. Even if they are not specifically within this program. Find me @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginaldblakecurtis/

To see the original Reddit article, please visit https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU/comments/c244nc/how_to_complete_the_mscia_in_2_months_quick/

Appendix

Okay, so after 300+ messages on LinkedIn, I decided to update the How To Complete Your Master's Degree in One Semester post. With over 12,000 views, it appears that this article is making a substantial impact in the cybersecurity community and even influencing those interested in cyber to challenge themselves. Although there is much controversy around EC Council right now, there are still students and employees interested in passing their CEH and CHFI exams for various reasons. Therefore, in the spirit of continuous education, I'll do my part and contribute to their aspirations. Enjoy!

Link to WGU Student & Alumni Resources

Learning Resources for WGU College of IT Alumni

How to Pass the CHFI in 10 Days

I started out scouring Reddit because I heard horror stories of people failing the exam. Many people had some great resources that were on Udemy. One guy said that he read the entire 1,000-page book offered by EC Council via WGU. Sorry, but ain't nobody got time for that, lol. Here is my approach .

Just do the Practice Tests (Recommended)

You could pass this test using the SQ3R method (mentioned earlier 😉) for the CHFI book and the Udemy practice tests. However, my suggestion is to take the practice test first and then use the reading material to work on your problem areas. Remember, you don't know what you don't know until you test your knowledge and skills. So don't be afraid to go ahead and take those practice tests first! To be completely honest, you could pass this exam just by following the steps below!

Udemy was affordable and resourceful for the CHFI exam

Many of the students on Reddit kept mentioning two courses on Reddit that they stated helped them tremendously. I must concur. These practice tests were great and even stated why the wrong answers were incorrect. Those two Udemy sources are: 

1. Kenneth Hill’s CHFI course 

Forensic Investigator Practice Exam | Udemy

2. Taylor Bear’s CHFI course 

Practice Tests CHFI (Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator) | Udemy

My suggestion is to get both. They are extremely affordable and will overprepare you for the exam.

How to Pass the CEH in 14 Days

I would not say this one was hard if you have a bit of IT experience. However, it took some actual studying to get a good understanding of the material. C701 (CEH) is on this list simply because it took me two weeks to take it. Nevertheless, I was interested in this course, so I did read the entire CEH All in One by Matt Walker. 

I typically do not read technical books because they tend to be dry and monotonous; however, this author was amazing. He was down to earth and used short stories and anecdotes to help the reader understand complex topics. I did not feel like I was reading a technical book. Furthermore, I gained a decent understanding of the attacker’s perspective, which helped me tremendously in risk management. 

The Game Plan

If you need to get through this one relatively quick, following these steps:

Note: I'd suggest taking the practice test first. This approach will ensure you are not watching videos or reading material on topics you already understand well. 😉

1. Read or Scan Matt Walker’s CEH All-in-One Book (definitely worth the read) (Optional) 👍🏾

a. Complete the online practice tests included with this purchase (Recommended)

You'll need to register your copy @ Total Seminars Training Hub

2. Complete the Kaplan (Cybervista) practice questions (offered via Pluralsight) (Recommended) Note: This is also free for WGU students 😏

Ethical Hacking (CEH Prep 2018) Path | Pluralsight

3. Purchase and study the Boson CEH questions (My number one suggestion!)

Practice Exam for Ethical Hacking v11 | Boson

Other Resources Offered by WGU!

Being a WGU Alumni has been a wonderful experience for me. Current students and many alumni enjoy the benefits of free access to Pluralsight, Udemy, and other resources. Remember to use these resources when the topics seem challenging to understand. Remember, you'll always have NightOwls like myself that you can always reach out to! 

Learning Resources for WGU College of IT Alumni

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