WGU speaks its own language. Here is the translation.

Almost nothing at WGU is called what you expect. There are no credits, no semesters, no professors in the usual sense and no grades at all. The vocabulary is not branding — it describes a genuinely different machine, and being fluent in it before you enrol is the difference between a confident first term and a confused one.

By Rennick Vaugh, MSN, RN 23 August 2026

The short version

The WGU student portal is the single place you do everything: it holds your Degree Plan (your full course list), your current term (six months), and each Course of Study you are working through. Inside a course you take a pre-assessment, read the coaching report it generates, work the linked learning resources, then clear either an Objective Assessment (a proctored exam) or a Performance Assessment (work submitted through TaskStream and judged by an anonymous evaluator).

Three people support you and they are not interchangeable: a Program Mentor for the whole degree, Course Instructors for individual subjects, and evaluators, who grade your work and never speak to you.

The three faculty roles, and why the distinction matters

New students routinely take a subject-matter question to the wrong person and lose a week. The roles are genuinely separate.

Your Program Mentor

Assigned to you for the length of your degree, and the closest thing WGU has to a constant. They hold scheduled calls with you, help you plan which courses to attempt in which term, and are the person you tell when life goes sideways. They are not a subject expert in most of what you study.

Course Instructors

Subject specialists attached to individual courses, reached by phone or web when you need them rather than on a timetable. This is who you go to when the pathophysiology will not go in. There is no lecture to attend — the contact happens because you initiate it, which is the single biggest behavioural adjustment for anyone arriving from a traditional programme.

Evaluators

The people who decide whether your submitted work is competent. They are anonymous, they did not teach you, and they do not negotiate. They read your submission against the same published rubric you were given, aspect by aspect. If you have ever felt a marker's personal taste decide your grade, this arrangement will feel like a relief.

The vocabulary, in plain English Worth reading before your first call with an enrolment counsellor

Competency Unit (CU): WGU's equivalent of a credit hour. It measures the material in a course rather than time spent in a seat. Graduate students need eight CUs a term to count as on-time.
Course of Study: A single course, and the container for everything in it. Its curriculum is built from topics, which is the unit the coaching report reports against.
Degree Plan: Your full course list for the programme, in the order WGU expects you to take it. What transfers in is subtracted here, which is why a transfer evaluation changes your plan rather than discounting your bill.
Term: Six months, flat-rate. Not a semester — nothing about it is scheduled except its start and end.
Pre-assessment: A practice run at an objective assessment, taken before the real thing. It does not count. Its whole purpose is to generate the coaching report.
Coaching report: Generated from your pre-assessment results, broken down by topic, with links into the learning resources for the areas you were weak in. Used properly it tells you exactly what to study and, more usefully, what to skip.
Objective Assessment (OA): A proctored exam. Pass or not pass. Capped at four attempts per assessment, and the third and fourth cost $60 each.
Performance Assessment (PA): Submitted work — a paper, a plan, a project. Judged aspect by aspect against a rubric with no overall score and no partial credit.
TaskStream: The platform performance assessments are submitted through. Evaluators select work there, open the rubric aligned to the competencies, and return comments against it.
Learning resources: The reading, courseware and materials attached to a course. There are no lectures to attend; these are what you work through, guided by the coaching report.
On-Time Progress: The minimum pace WGU expects — eight competency units per term at graduate level. Falling below it is an academic-standing matter, not merely a slow month.
Night Owls: What WGU calls its students. You will see it constantly once you are inside, and it tells you something true: this is a university built around people studying after a shift.

What a course actually looks like, start to finish

You open the Course of Study from your Degree Plan. Everything for that course lives there.
You take the pre-assessment early — ideally before doing any reading at all, because a clean baseline produces a more useful coaching report.
You read the coaching report by topic. Strong areas you leave alone. Weak areas link straight into the learning resources.
You work only the gaps. This is the acceleration mechanism, and it is the entire reason a knowledgeable nurse can move quickly here.
You clear the assessment — a proctored OA, or a PA submitted through TaskStream and judged aspect by aspect.
You move immediately to the next course. Nothing waits for a calendar. The term is already paid for.

The habit that separates fast students from stuck ones

Taking the pre-assessment first feels wrong. Every instinct from a traditional education says you study, then test. Here that instinct costs you weeks, because you spend them re-reading material you already know instead of finding the four topics you do not.

The nurses who finish in two terms are almost always the ones who treat the coaching report as a to-do list and refuse to read anything that is not on it.

Common questions about the portal

Is there a live class to attend at WGU?

No. There are no scheduled lectures and no cohort moving through the material with you. Course Instructors are available by phone or web when you contact them, and your Program Mentor holds regular scheduled calls, but nothing on your calendar is set by the university.

What is the difference between a Program Mentor and a Course Instructor at WGU?

A Program Mentor is assigned for your whole degree and helps you plan terms, choose what to attempt and stay on track. A Course Instructor is a subject specialist for one course and helps you with the actual material. Take planning questions to the mentor and subject questions to the instructor.

What is a coaching report?

A breakdown of your pre-assessment results by topic, with links into the learning resources for the topics you did poorly on. It exists so you can study only your gaps rather than the whole course, which is how acceleration at WGU actually works in practice.

Who grades work at WGU?

Anonymous evaluators, who did not teach you. They judge performance assessments through TaskStream against the published rubric, aspect by aspect, and return comments on the aspects that did not clear. They do not assign an overall score and there is no partial credit.

Does WGU use Blackboard or Canvas?

No. WGU runs its own student portal rather than a conventional learning management system, with performance assessments submitted through TaskStream. If you are used to Blackboard or Canvas at another school, expect the layout and the vocabulary to be unfamiliar for the first week or two.

Still unsure how any of this would feel day to day?

Twenty minutes with someone who has walked nurses through this portal and four others like it. We gain nothing from where you enrol.

Talk to us