I am currently a Computer Science Major working on finishing my Bachelor’s degree. I will have have 89 credits out of 120 completed after this semester, and am about to start my computer courses next fall. I was able to take a vast majority of all my ged eds online through the school which has been working great.
With the amount of hours I am working and the distance it is to campus (1hr 15 min), I can only take about 1 campus class per semester from here on out as they don’t offer any of the computer classes online. This would take me quite a while to finish my Bachelor’s in Computer Science.
My other option was looking at was a Bachelor’s of Information Science & Technology which I can complete all online and with transferring everything over, I should be able to complete this in 4-5 semesters compared to who knows how long taking 1 class at a time at the other campus to get a CS degree.
My question is though, how does a Information Science & Technology degree compare to a Computer Science degree career wise? I want to finish my bachelor’s as soon as possible to get my career moving forward, but also don’t want to go for something that isn’t going to get me anywhere either. I don’t know much about the IST degree so I am asking here for help on making sure this is a good decision before I proceed.
Please let me know if there is any other questions that I can answer that would help guide me on making the right decision.
I don’t know too much about the IST degree, but i think you should go for the CS degree and not settle for IST.
Since you live 1hr 15min away, you should line up a schedule that is two of the computer courses back to back. I dont know how plausible it is to maybe take some work hours off so you can do two classes though?
If you do two courses Fall/Spring and 1 course Summer, that will be around 18 credits/yr, and youll finish in 4 semesters.
If you can only do 1 course Fall/Spring and 1 course Summer, that will be around 11 credits/yr and you’ll finish in 6 semesters.
I would recommend the former, but if it’s not possible you have to weigh the benefits of a CS education that will be 6 semesters, vs. an IST degree in 3 semesters.
The IST degree wouldn’t carry nearly the same heft as a CS degree.
Most CS grads end up as programmers, but most programmers I know have degrees other than CS. If you do go the IST route, try to find a way to take at least three or four programming classes. The mobile and web application development classes look worthwhile.
Online CS degrees seem to be popping up all over the place. I’m surprised I couldn’t find one in Wisconsin.
Last data gathered showed about a 14 pct unemployment rate in IT degree which is more akin to a business degree than 8 pct unemployment in CS. But it depends individually on other factors too, like skill set, internships and work experience. And especially it depends of the differing jobs and which you prefer. At you already in a job where you can ask managers?
That’s pretty crazy you could take so many credits without taking any in your major. At some schools you can’t even get a CS degree if you don’t start at least as a sophomore if not freshman because the course sequencing you wouldn’t graduate on time.
Most of the software writers I know did graduate with computer science or computer engineering majors. But a scattering of other majors are represented, such as physics, non-computer engineering, math or statistics, and various humanities and social studies. There is the occasional person without a bachelor’s degree who self-educated. But I do not know of any graduates in IST/MIS/IT/IS-type majors, other business majors, or biology working in software writing.
There aren’t enough CS and CE grads being produced in the US to fill more than a fraction of the software jobs available. I think there were less than 20,000 CS and CE grads produced in US universities last year, while businesses are screaming that 65,000 H-1B’s to fill software jobs isn’t enough. That’s why so many other majors also produce programmers.
My wife has an IT Management degree, and she was a programmer. She started out in software QA, and then moved into programming. She was an exception for someone with an IT degree, though.
Lots of database analysts and database administrators I’ve worked with have MIS/IT-type degrees.
The only non-STEM person I knew who worked as a programmer had a history degree. I only knew one with a fisheries degree (great at statistics,) but he was the only one with a biology-type major that I can think of.