Computer Science vs Computer Networking Degree

Ungadunga911

Hello, im a junior at a regionally accredited university of southern ms. My major is computer networking and i was curious why most universities in the country only have a computer science or engineering degree, its not specifically towards computer networking like the one im currently in. I know there are many options to obtain one online through many schools, but as far as a traditional brick school, there are not that many. Im just wondering why that is, i know computer networking is a major aspect of the IT industry, i just figured that every university would have a network focused degree.

yoba222

The answer to this is not so simple and I think the full answer is beyond many people's attention span, so I'll give a partial answer.

There's a lot of mathematical theory in computer science and engineering. Network stuff is much more hands-on and you need to have done it in the industry for a long time to become an expert. This is a poor match for an academic environment, where the underpaid dean of mathematics shouldn't really step in and teach a class on wireless network security.

But they step in and teach it anyways in some schools. The budget and staff-stretched university assigns a professor to teach some IT course that they're really not qualified to teach. So the professor follows the generic teaching recipe: assign a textbook, read off a few PowerPoint lectures, and assign a research paper.You'll spend several hours writing a 20-pager on using Kismet in Kali Linux, but you'll never be mentored in the process.

Part of the problem is the salary. If you were a CCIE holding network expert making north of 90k, would you drop that and teach for 45k?

Disclaimer: I have a bachelor's degree, I got a lot of value of it, but most of the tech stuff I learned on my own on the job and while studying/labbing for certs.

Node Man

I always figured networking isnt covered as much because it is so vendor specific. A vendor neutral networking degree might not cover enough material.

Also, 4 years isnt long enough to learn some of the big machines ;-P