The perfect IT Education? (IT/Nerd Alert)

[BushCountry]

Below is a typical Associate Level Degree program in Information Systems.   Quite frankly, I think programs like these programs are a disservice to communities they serve.  I also firmly believe that improper education and training of America's IT personal has hurt the economy and has made a major contribution to the decline in IT jobs.  Yes, I know the bubble burst, but companies are not pushing forward aggressively when it comes to IT.  So many companies got burnt by poorly trained IT personal and their empty promises that they are running scared. I value and respect the input of the people on this site, so I ask, "If you could develop/design a perfect Information System AA degree program what would it contain?" 

My thoughts are presented in italics.  Please feel free to rename courses, add/subtract ideas, and give me your two cents worth.

Introduction to computers and computing.  This course should be designed with a few thoughts in mind;  How to keep my computers/network secure.  How to maintain/optimize the units where the operator is the bottleneck.  Company-wide hardware purchasing decisions and cost benefit analysis of upgrades.  Basically, I am saying that these programs should skip 90% of what they teach about the internal operation of the computer (no text book is up-to-date and the information for the most part is laughable).

Computer programming and problem solving.  This course should be based on html, html help, java script, and SQL.

Basic spreadsheet design and development. Every spreadsheet should be designed and developed toward decisions that an IT personal makes daily.  For instance how to calculate company-wide hardware/software purchases, IT labor costs and benefits, and cost benefit analysis of upgrades.

An introduction to graphic design software.  Is this really necessary?  If necessary, this course should use software that produces flowcharts, network cabling diagrams, and how to optimize graphics for the web/databases.

Operating systems concepts; database concepts and applications.  Every computer should be a multi-boot operating system machine with connectivity issues discussed. The connectivity issues;  Security, Internet, LAN, WAN, and Terminal Services.  Database concepts and applications should relate to the current technologies for data warehousing, access times and bandwidth requirements, and backup procedures.

Database programming; installation and maintenance of computer hardware.  The database design projects should include a fictional company employee database (should allow the employee to change information as required, e.g. address info, health insurance, and dependents), computer / software / network inventory, knowledge base of common networking troubleshooting and connectivity issues relating to this fictional company, and company policy/handbook. 

Computer training and support techniques.  Cost benefit analysts can not be stressed enough.  Network and computer security, privacy and computer use policy issues, and remote administration/repair of PCs.

Systems analysis and design.  Internal structured cabling, network communications technologies, supporting remote users, firewalls, routers, gateways, and designing a secure system. 

Design and implementation of a systems project.  One design project of a new 500 workforce fictional company.  The layout of the three building complex, server software scheme and department level breakdown should be completed by the instructor.  Students should be required to make the purchasing decisions for the purchase of Network Servers, Switches/Routers, Structure Cabling and Racks,  Personal Computers, and networking/pc software.

Electives (Degree - 2 courses) - Students are required to take a 3-credit-hour humanities/fine arts course and a 3-credit-hour social/behavioral science course.  For once, I am at a loss for words.  These courses are suppose to make the IT professional a well-rounded individual.  I would like to find a more practical use for these 6 credit hours. Any suggestions?

English (Degree - 2 courses) - These courses emphasize the writing process and professional communication skills.  First course should be technical writing, practical proposals and grants.  Second course should be creating effective web documents, e.g. HTML Help and Employee Computer Use Handbooks.

Math (Degree - 1 course) - Survey of topics including sets, logic, probability, statistics, matrices, mathematical systems, geometry, topology, mathematics of finance, and modeling.  Math course topics should relate to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and cost benefit analysts of everything from increase network bandwidth to speeding up PC by adding memory.  In other words, practical math for the network and system administrators.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

[me:]I used to work for a company ...

[you:] I could be a jerk, and point out that that company largely went belly-up, but that would be, well, jerkish.

Actually, I wasn't talking about that company, although you might want to take a look at their recent stock price.

My point was that people still do solder. Not on plug-and-play PC/VCR/cell phone, which are mass produced and can be tossed in the trash with impunity, but on more specialized boards.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Basic electronics
Digital Circuits
Processors
Modern Component Architectures and Design
Machine Code/Assembly


For a start.

[SlickWillard]

My point was that people still do solder. Not on plug-and-play PC/VCR/cell phone, which are mass produced and can be tossed in the trash with impunity, but on more specialized boards.

Yes, and for an extremely specialized group of people, it may very well prove highly profitable. Obviously a free market will determine precisely the situations in which it makes sense to perform specialized soldering.

However, probably 99.99999999999999999999% of the time, you'll be bumping heads with sweatshop labor in Taiwan/Singapore/Thailand/Vietnam/Communist China, if not prison labor, or even industrial robots, in which case it's insane to try to compete - just yank the part and replace it with one that's equally worthless.

PS: Did you see The Dead Zone last night? I'd say more, but if you haven't seen it, I don't wanna give away the ending. [Hint: Years ago, there was a Hans Solo/Star Wars novel that dealt with the same subject.]

[SlickWillard]

Actually, I wasn't talking about that company, although you might want to take a look at their recent stock price.

What's the status of your stock options with them? [Please don't say I dunno...]

[BushCountry]

Bump:

Because I like to fix circuits the good ole' fashion way. Soldering, cutting copper runs, drilling eyelets, mounting studs, and replacing a whole sections of the pc board was fun! It is one of my skills that to my regret has faded in history.

[SlickWillard]

I assuming you want the HelloWorld function to fire when the component(embed control) is activated (one time event per component focus). If this assumtion is correct then I would call the onBeforeActivate event. If you call the onActivate event of embed and press Tab you will see the HelloWorld dialog. That really sucks because of the extra obscure keystrokes needed. The onLoad event is generally a web page or VB form event sink not a general component event in most cases. Hope this helps.

But according to the relevant page at MSDN, the onLoad event "[f]ires immediately after the browser loads the object" and is a valid event for the EMBED DHTML object.

I'm so sick and damn tired of documentation that's flat out wrong [or just a pack of sales & marketing lies] that I think my head is gonna explode.

[csconerd]

Can't forget these as required reading:

TCP/IP Illustrated (all 3 volumes) - Stevens
Digital Telephony - John C. Bellamy
The Guide to T1 Internetworking - Flanagan

and finally (and only because I wrote it and will shamelessly plug it on a geek thread)

Cisco Press Remote Access Exam Ceritification Guide - Morgan

[BushCountry]

bttt

[stainlessbanner]

Good responses from all on the thread - I'll weigh in with some thoughts.

1. Students need to be taught the basics - how to read/write/basic math. Many students reach senior level courses without basic comprehension skills.
   
2. Teach methodology and process; perhaps how to think and approach problems. Technology changes so quickly, it's tough to teach a student specific software/hardware versions.

On the courses, I like the human behaviors/humanities requirement. Good sys analysts will pay attention to human behaviors when designing systems (perhaps that is why so many IT systems fail?). Unversitities and the DoD are keying in on human engineering right now. I would keep those.

Aside from the basic skills comprehension, the other issue some folks had on the thread was the alignment of IT and Business goals. You might consider more business courses - every IT person should know about the effects of markets, business drivers, competition, etc.

Some of my comments may be better suited for a 4-year degree. Just my .02

Are you an instructor, BC?

 

[stainlessbanner]

< for comments >

[dr_who_2]

I see, thanks. Very helpful....but still evil.

[BushCountry]

Bump one last time.

[Cronos]

Maybe more time ought to be spent on analysis, design, a lot more.

[BushCountry]

Bumpity, bump, bump....

[Cronos]

Ping))))))

Analysis, Design, Analysis, Design. Any 'bot can code

[Just_de_facts]

Start them out with Donald Knuths' three volume set, "The Art of Programming ". If they can't master that, then send them to law school or have them run for political office.