Thoughts on M.S. IT Management degree?

Hey all,

Initially I was considering pursuing a M.S. Information Assurance degree but lately I have been reconsidering due to doing a lot of work as a project manager (in a organization with a large focus on IT) and I have been enjoying the work. Rather than pursuing the MSIA degree from DSU like originally planned, I have been thinking of going for a MS in IT Management or something similar. Does anyone have any experience with these type of programs or any general thoughts and feedback? I feel like it would make me more flexible and not as constrained as pursuing a degree in a specific specialty and hopefully lead to the ability to move into a more management oriented position down the line.

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Comments

OctalDump

Which institution of higher learning are you thinking of? There's some difference in programs between places.
FWIW, it does sound like a worthwhile degree. There's more and more C level positions openning up for IT, and certainly the field of IT management has matured quite a bit over the last 20-25 years. Frameworks like ITIL and Cobits, project management methods, the rise of agile, devops, cloud and outsourcing, it's all moved on remarkably.

Arguably, a relatively senior IT person will be doing a lot more SLA management and governance than any technical work as we move towards an increasingly outsourced, cloud and virtualised model. Getting skills in those areas, along with technical knowledge at maybe a broader level, is probably a very smart choice.

Having worked in organisations that do IT management well, and others that do it very badly, it's clear that the ones who actually invest in management are the ones that will succeed longer term. Hopefully the days of the 'self taught' former programmer as manager are numbered.

srabiee

I recently posted some feedback regarding the MS:ITM degree program at WGU. Copy and paste from that thread:

My opinion on the WGU MS:ITM program is overall mixed at this point, but leaning towards the negative.

I cannot say that I would completely recommend this degree. The courses just seem to be too unfocused, some of the course material is downright useless, and frankly I'm pretty bored of it only halfway in. I did not have any of these issues with the WGU BS:ND&M degree. I would almost recommend a complete overhaul for this degree plan. At the very least, they need to include some objective assessments (exams), more technical courses, and stop relying solely on writing so many damned papers. And a certification or two wouldn't hurt either. As it stands, the degree is 100% performance assessments. (multiple 10+ page papers per course)

The course mentors are hit or miss. One of my course mentors oversees 4 of the courses in the program and she is phenomenal. She's always available, always willing to go above and beyond, and really helped me when I was struggling to complete a few of the assessments. Some of the other course mentors, especially the ones for the technical courses, have been extremely unhelpful. Form letter responses to email questions, never answer their phones during office hours, and 2 ~ 3 days turnaround time after leaving messages just to receive a response like "You might want to do a Google search on that." I've called Student Services and complained several times, but nothing really came of it. I felt completely on my own while working on those courses and was very frustrated by the situation. Again, never had that problem with the BS degree. Seems like because this particular degree plan is so unpopular, there just aren't enough resources assigned to helping the existing MSITM students along.

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my decision to pursue an MS degree from WGU, it's just that I wasn't expecting the road to be so bumpy along the way. I'm pretty burned out already and can't wait to finish the degree so I can focus on other things. (VCP-DCV, MCSE:Exchange, MCSE:Private Cloud, etc)

Xavor

I'm in the MSIM from ASU. It's alright so far after one class. Accelerated schedule offered in class, nights, and online. I liked the course program compared to many other schools and it's a brick and mortar.

Mike-Mike

i took the MSISA at WGU, and I think it is pretty broad and would definitely cover Project Manager-esque stuff.

Dakinggamer87

srabiee wrote: »

I recently posted some feedback regarding the MS:ITM degree program at WGU. Copy and paste from that thread:

My opinion on the WGU MS:ITM program is overall mixed at this point, but leaning towards the negative.

I cannot say that I would completely recommend this degree. The courses just seem to be too unfocused, some of the course material is downright useless, and frankly I'm pretty bored of it only halfway in. I did not have any of these issues with the WGU BS:ND&M degree. I would almost recommend a complete overhaul for this degree plan. At the very least, they need to include some objective assessments (exams), more technical courses, and stop relying solely on writing so many damned papers. And a certification or two wouldn't hurt either. As it stands, the degree is 100% performance assessments. (multiple 10+ page papers per course)

The course mentors are hit or miss. One of my course mentors oversees 4 of the courses in the program and she is phenomenal. She's always available, always willing to go above and beyond, and really helped me when I was struggling to complete a few of the assessments. Some of the other course mentors, especially the ones for the technical courses, have been extremely unhelpful. Form letter responses to email questions, never answer their phones during office hours, and 2 ~ 3 days turnaround time after leaving messages just to receive a response like "You might want to do a Google search on that." I've called Student Services and complained several times, but nothing really came of it. I felt completely on my own while working on those courses and was very frustrated by the situation. Again, never had that problem with the BS degree. Seems like because this particular degree plan is so unpopular, there just aren't enough resources assigned to helping the existing MSITM students along.

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my decision to pursue an MS degree from WGU, it's just that I wasn't expecting the road to be so bumpy along the way. I'm pretty burned out already and can't wait to finish the degree so I can focus on other things. (VCP-DCV, MCSE:Exchange, MCSE:Private Cloud, etc)

Thanks for the feedback as I was planning to jump into this degree plan after my B.S. degree is completed just waiting on my Capstone approval.