Capstone passed first try and the waiting is over. I started this journey in March of last year. I took this communities advice of starting at Sophia and glad I did. Getting that initial jumpstart on some of the basics for the degree in a lower pressure testing environment was a big deal for me. I was discouraged with the number of credits that I was going to be able to bring into WGU After my transcription evaluation. The courses at Sophia essentially allow me to recover the lost credit credits that were not going to transfer in. I took 6 weeks to build those up, then started in course work at WGU officially last May. 
 I have 20+ years in my career and over the last 5 of those years I’ve taken many self-paced data analytics types courses and classes. I did a couple Udacity Nanodegrees, many LinkedIn Learning courses, and I was able to actually use many of these newly acquired skills in my existing job even before starting back to get my degree. 
Why the degree? I hit the paper ceiling. Even with my experience, consistent top ratings on my team and even high praise and recognition from my leadership, I was flat out told that there is no way I move up or even horizontally to a better paying title without a STEM degree. Computer Science was not my preference so I made sure the Data Analytics degree would cover the requirements for the title and potential promotions I feel I otherwise can attain. I expected this journey to take at least 18-24 months, but here I am after just 17, including Sophia. 
I even took a month off in November as part of that journey to refuel and gear up for the final push. I had completed all by 10 courses through my first term. That was the number I wanted to stretch to reach and I hit my goal. Then I knew I had a chance to finish this thing in 2 terms total. My advisor reminded me that I could do a 1 month extension if only my Capstone remained and that gave me a little breathing room.  My term 2 finished in May but I used June for the Capstone. 
Capstone— throughout the entire journey I worried about this. I had built this up to the point that it was becoming a real blocker for me as it got closer. I started brainstorming ideas and each idea got bigger and bigger. I know I could so some pretty cool ML projects and would really enjoy it. But I also knew that the bigger the ideas got, so did the anxiety and pressure. After a chat with the Capstone instructor, he talked me down. He set me up extremely well as we talked through what I needed to do and how to approach this, given my goals and timeline. After we talked, I had a realistic idea of what to research, went home and completed the research that very night. Then it was just writing up the approval request, the proposal (hardest part), and the final writeup. I had it all done within about a week, but it was a week full of long evenings. Task 3 passed tonight and the feeling of being done is incredible. I’m so glad I did this. I’m so thankful for the acceleration option at WGU. Many of the courses I took I could have taught. Many courses on the other hand kicked my butt. I learned a lot, I grew. I fought going back to school for 20 years. I tried it 4 other times. WGU helped me realize a dream that I had given up on. I hope this helps someone else too. 


Done!!! BS:Data Analytics