What do you all think of these Information Technology degrees that are
springing up, such as this one? http://www.spjc.edu/bachelors/techm_curr.php
Maybe these management type skills are what's in demand now. It's likely
I might be landing a job at a startup wireless ISP. These skills would
probably be helpful to growing the company.

How would this degree rate with a Computer Science degree? Personally,
CS seems like more of an academic achievement, and more personally
fulfilling.

Matt

Matt wrote:
IT seeks to serve the computing infrastructural needs of business,
usually big business. Programs like technology management (or MIS) are
generally about managing IT staff and projects. The emphasis is largely
on *using* software effectively, not building it.

CS studies computing: the theory, the tools, the mechanisms, their
limits, and it tries to extend those limits. It does this mostly via
software, but it also overflows into hardware (mostly at the level of
symbols and not electricity). Oddly enough, like IT, CS also doesn't
especially study the building of software. Most CS programs teach no
courses in individual programming languages and they give short shrift
to software development theory or practice. Truly, the craft of
programming is an orphan within academia. (Or should that be bastard?)

MBA programs mostly seek to serve as: 1) financial investors, 2) middle
managers in large corporations, or 3) hired guns who tell companies how
to minimize their costs and optimize their business practices. (They're
probably better at #2 than the other jobs, IMHO.) In recent years, many
MBA programs have expanded their agendas to include medical/hospital
management, entrepreneurism, and various other specialized tracks.
Whether they serve these niches any better than their core missions is a
judgment I'll leave to others.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, I think a *lot* of wise folks would
suggest that you get a tech or domain-specific degree (or several) and
then join a startup. You'll probably learn a lot more about that's
really useful by doing than by spending time in classrooms that are
taught by folks with lots of letters after their names, but little
experience in starting a business or making it work.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, IT is simply not for you. Although
an engineering or business degree is far better, in fact no degree is
ideal. You'll want some combination of business and technology that
places a priority on what cutting edge technology can do and not on
optimizing your business practices to achieve maximum profit nor how to
structure a balance sheet (or cut costs) just to improve stock value.

If I were to suggest a curriculum for a software dude with aspirations
toward working in a startup, I'd start with a big dose of technology,
since the first question in any startup has to be, "Is it possible?"
Only then can you ask, "How can it make money?"

I suspect most successful startups are full of techies with hard degrees
(like EE, CS, physics, OR, math, etc), as well as folks who can talk the
talk of business. You have to choose which is the right role for you.

Randy

--
Randy Crawford http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rand rand AT rice DOT edu

In article <d7o823$39e$1@joe.rice.edu>, Randy <joe@burgershack.com> writes:
Is this actually true of "most CS programs"? Is there a reliable
study of most CS programs available? These things certainly aren't
true of the CS program I graduated from in 1991 from Northeastern. It
had required courses in Pascal, C, LISP, and VAX Assembly, and
students were also required to take Fortran or COBOL or both.

There was a required course dedicated to software development theory,
and several advanced courses with group projects that required
practicing at least basic software development principles. And the
CS degree required participation in Northeastern's co-op program, so
students also had two years' experience working in their field for an
actual company when they graduated.

For a baccalaureate that's pretty good. It'd be hard to squeeze in
much more in the way of required courses in specific languages or in
software development, with all the other requirements (many imposed
by accreditation) and still leaving enough elective slots to let
students earn a minor (or a second major, with reasonable over-
loading).

Perhaps that is unusual, but I'd be curious to know if anyone has any
statistics on the matter.

--
Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@microfocus.com

See who I'm! -- Jackie Chan and unknown subtitler, _Dragons Forever_

Michael Wojcik wrote:
I don't know what's done everywhere, but from NE's web site, it seems
their current BS in CS requires no courses in specific programming
languages:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/undergraduate/data/CSBS.pdf

Their course list offers no courses dedicated to specific languages:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/undergraduate...CourseList.pdf

That's how it's done in all the CS programs that I know. Most schools
no longer offer courses in specific languages. Some still do, but offer
minimal credits for each course (like 1 semester hour).

I've heard it explained as, "A CS curriculum is composed of courses in
theory and systems. Students often learn a programming language as part
of a theory or systems course, but not as an end in itself."

Yeah, courses in software engineering or a survey course in programming
languages are still common. But a course in C++ or a course in Lisp are
rarities in CS curricula, AFAIK. It may be a different story in IT...

I think it's also a good thing because every programming language should
be learned in the context of how that language was intended to be used.
Learning Lisp by writing "hello world" programs teaches you nothing
about the strengths of the language. Learning Lisp using Peter Norvig's
AI programming book or with Abelson & Sussman's SICP gives you an
appreciation of WHY the language is as it is, and HOW the language is
suited to its target application domain.

Without context, learning each new programming language is going to seem
like slapping yet another bandaid on the same old frog.

Randy

--
Randy Crawford http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rand rand AT rice DOT edu