Microeconomics (4 Days)

This blog post is part of a series where I chronicle my advancement through WGU’s Bachelor of Science, Business – Information Technology Management degree. It includes detailed reports on my study methods and strategies as well as occasional tips and tricks. To see all entries in this series, click the “WGU” link under “Categories” on the left sidebar (bottom of the page if viewing on mobile).

The cohorts for this class are pretty impressive. They really cover the material and provide examples and problems that are relevant to both the textbook and the Objective Assessment. Unfortunately, it’s not readily apparent to which unit a given cohort video belongs. To help with this (and provide an explanation for my study process below), this is how I categorized them:

Unit 1: Economic Way of Thinking, Consumer Surplus and Producer Surplus, Supply and Demand, The Economic Problem

Unit 2: Consumer Behavior, Externalities, Government Action in Markets, Public Good and Common Resources

Unit 3: Costs of Production, Factors of Production

Unit 4: Perfect Competition, Monopolistic Competition, Monopoly, Oligopoly

I can’t say how accurate that breakdown is, but at the least it helps you understand what I was studying.

Day 1: (1) Watched cohort videos for Units 1, 2, 3 (8 cohorts in total) at 2.3x speed

Day 2: (1) Watched cohort videos for Unit 4 (5 cohorts) at 2.3x speed, (2) Took the Pre Assessment (3) Studied Unit X, chapter A

After Pre Assessment #1 (Competent):

The good news is that the cohorts are very good at covering what’s on the PA. Having watched all of the cohort videos, I passed the PA with a fair score. There were two units (spanning 3 of the book chapters) that I wanted to study a little more before taking the OA, but after the PA I felt pretty confident.

Day 3: (1) Studied Unit X, chapter B, (2) Studied Chapter Y (3), Scheduled OA

Day 4: (1) Did additional studying, Took OA

After the Objective Assessment (Competent):

I have to say that I was pretty nervous going into this OA. I really hadn’t had a lot of time to dedicate to studying in this class, and although I’d reviewed subjects as needed after taking the PA, I wasn’t at all confident that I’d really improved as much as I needed to. Thankfully, I was wrong. I scored higher on the OA than I had on the PA.

There are some questions on the OA that were alluded to in the cohorts/text book but not explicitly stated. However, in each case it was in regards to topics that were covered in-depth in Managerial Accounting. So I suggest taking Managerial Accounting before Microeconomics, if you have the option.