At Western Governors University, there are subject-matter experts within the Student Learning department called “Course Mentors” to assist you as you work to build competence in a particular subject area. The Course Mentors have professional training and advanced degrees in the subject-matter they oversee in addition to intimate knowledge of the Course of Study and Learning Resources. The Course Mentors should be your first contact when you have questions about the domain of study, including any and all questions pertaining to Course of Study clarification, accessing and/or using the learning resources effectively and efficiently to build competence, and any content you encounter while engaging the learning resources.   While Course Mentors are not evaluators and thus cannot guarantee you will pass an assessment, they can provide you with valuable assistance and advice.

You are welcome to contact the Course Mentors directly  in any domain of study you are working within by telephone, email, or instant message when you have questions or need assistance.  You can find Course Mentors’ contact information in the Course of Study for that assessment by clicking on the “About the Course Mentor” button in any of the web enabled courses of study.  You can also make contact with the Course Mentors by clicking on the “Contact a Mentor” button in the associated learning community.  Please engage the Course Mentors by asking specific questions rather than more general questions.  In doing so, you will facilitate more effective communications.  The Course Mentors offer you their full support, so please reach out to them with your subject-matter questions!

In addition to email and telephone communications, you are welcome to engage the Course Mentors for a domain of study at a community chat. The community chats are hosted by the Course Mentors via teleconference and through an online presentation that may include a whiteboard or PowerPoint presentation.  You can expect community chats to be student-focused, interactive, and informative.  It is the ultimate goal of the Course Mentor hosting the community chat to create an educational environment that is supportive and comfortable.  The community chats offer you a great opportunity to build relationships with both students and Course Mentors in the domain of study while building competence in the domain objectives.  Past students have found community chats to be one of the most helpful aspects of their education at WGU.

The following examples show how Course Mentors helped students succeed in their studies:

"I came across a chat session that a course mentor had done on the exact problem I was having. I followed the advice that the mentor recommended in the chat session and I completed my revised essay with a 4.0!"

"Thank you so very much for all of your help.  I appreciate the time you took to call, e-mail, and to help me gain a better understanding of the areas I was lacking in.  I am grateful for your suggestions, guidance, and helpful tips and guidelines. All of your mentoring has helped me to become stronger in the knowledge of the Humanities.  I passed my assessment with an 83%!  I cannot thank you enough or express my gratitude enough for all you have done to help me be more successful.  THANK YOU!!!!!"

Please feel free to contact any of our Course Mentors at WGU when you have specific content questions about a particular topic and they will help you to gain the competence necessary to succeed with your goal of earning your degree.

I’ve spent the past 20 years as a very successful businessman. My background is sales and management, and I’ve been very good at both. I’ve worked both in automotive and real estate. At my mid-life crisis, I wanted a degree in business, I thought it would be easy (most of the business classes have been). Then there was LAC1, LAE1, LAT1, and LUT1. My background didn’t prepare me for these assessments.

I struggled with the annotated bibliography more than any project I’ve ever taken on. I felt no matter what I did, it was not enough. I began to feel WGU was a bad idea, but then I made the phone call that changed my academic life. I called the course mentor listed on the community page. The Language Mentors help with all four classes. The person I spoke to was not the mentor of that class; however she took ownership of my issues and helped me learn to solve them. Before resubmitting my annotated bibliography, she had me send it to her so she could proof it before the grader. After some excellent notes and suggestions, I was ready to submit it for the fifth time. With her help I passed, needing no further revisions.