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Opinions on Penn State World Campus?
testing010101
Member Posts: 22 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hi folks, I searched the forum but I wasn't able to find any posts regarding the quality of Penn State's MPS in Information Assurance. If someone could post here or PM me I would appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thanks.
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Khaos1911
Member Posts: 366
As promised to a handful of you, here's a quick review of the first course I've taken towards the MPS in Information Sciences, Cybersecurity and Information Assurance degree from Penn State World Campus.
A little background - I started my M.S. in Applied Information Technology - Network Security from another school. I took 3 courses (9 credits), and all of those transferred to PSU as electives. So, I only have to take the prescribed courses (24 credits) to complete the degree..yay money saving!
General
The course I took was IST 554 - Network Security and Management. This is the first required course, and a pre-req to other courses in the program. I have somewhat of a networking background and am currently making a career in IT security, so I really honestly learned nothing - it was an easy A for me with experience and probably would still be an easy A for someone with moderate experience that can put in a little work/effort in addition to the time it takes to just grind out the assignments. This course is probably on par with Net/Sec+ content at best, if I had to compare it to certs.
Teams of 2-4 are formed during the first week of class. Since this course is open to anyone in any Information Sciences track (for example, an EA student can take it as an elective), the material might be completely new to some people. Make sure you get a good team early with members that have similar experience to yours.
The material is, in some cases, pretty out-dated. Labs in Windows XP/Backtrack 4, etc.. All material is provided via the course website, no book or extra materials are required.
Assignments/grading
- writing assignments (n=4): 2 page opinion-based papers based off of short articles. not bad.
- quizzes (n=13): for the most part, very annoying. old info, vague questions, etc...but fairly graded. these make up a large portion of your grade (~50%) and are the 'most difficult' part of the class
- discussion activities (n=4): easy. each group does 1 presentation (VoiceThread) and all other groups comment.
- labs (n=6-7?): easy. virtual labs with step-by-step instructions..I was disappointed by these, because I would have like to have had to figure out more on my own. these are supposed to be completed with your groups.
- term project - a few different options - case study, demonstration, etc. requires a few different deliverables of a written report (proposal, phase 1, phase 2, final) and a couple VoiceThread presentations. topics can really be anything relating to network security
Overall, it seems like if you do the assignments in full and on time, you'll get a good grade.
Faculty
The professor was a life-long academic. Little (if any?) real-world experience, and his knowledge was pretty dated. I didn't watch any of his lectures and barely used his powerpoint slides. That said, he was very responsive and tried to help when people needed it. His TA was pretty helpful overall.
Online Format
For this course, we used the internal course site, PSU's ANGEL course management system, Yammer, and some awful service called VoiceThread. VoiceThread was annoying at first, but after one or two assignments I got used to it and it wasn't too bad.
To sum up my experience, I was a little underwhelmed by this course but that is hopefully due to it being an ~intro course and the first course in the program. Hopefully as I get a little further into the degree it'll get a little more challenging, and I'll try to keep anyone interested up-to-date on the way.
Side note/rant:
- I previously stated that it was exciting being enrolled in a course with a number of people holding high-ranking titles, etc.. Spoke to soon..this is a good example of how titles, etc..really can mean nothing. For example, Senior Cyber Security Architect (self-proclaimed technical expert; everything IT security) at a LARGE defense contractor that didn't understand even the most basic assignments? Whaaaaat?
http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/113260-review-penn-state-world-campus-mps-cyber-info-sec.html