DeVry or National University.

Okason

Please does anyone have a word or two for me, I am planning on enrolling for CIS degree course and at the moment the schools I am looking at are Devry and National University here in San Diego, CA. I want some feedback on their quality of education,Acreditation,Cost effectiveness and Name recognition (to employers) amongst other things.

I have been doing Helpdesk/Tech Support fo more than 2 yrs and I want to continue in that path to Helpdesk Level 3, and hopefully down the road to be qualified to apply for such positions like Sys Engineer,Sys Analyst and eventually CIO or any other title in that progression so I am thinking a CIS is more suited to help me advance in that direction but then the Admission guy I met at Devry today was telling me to take a look at Computer Engineering, is he right?

I already have A+ and N+, will be taking 70-270 soon, then will continue to work towards MCSA/E path.

Any thought even a sentence will be greately appreciated.

moss12

enrol for cambridge very good http://www.cam.ac.uk/


no.1 university in the world

dagger1x

I know ive read here and other places that Devry doesnt carry the regional accredidation that you should look for in a university. Lacking this accreditation makes transferring credits from Devry very difficult if not impossible to other accredited schools. So lets say you wanted to transfer after two years to a state or private school (SDSU, UC) they might tell you they wont accept those credits. There looks to be alot of colleges and universities in San diego that would have regional accredidation and some of them alot less expensive. When I googled National University this is what I found and I believe the Western association of schools and colleges is the accreditation you are looking for. The best thing to do is make sure the credit is transferrable and have the regional accredidation stamp of approval. I would pick a state run or private college thats regionally accredited every time.

Affiliations and memberships that strengthen the University and its quality

Since 1977, National University has been accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
The University is also:

Approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC)
Approved by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE)
Accredited by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE)
A member of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)
A member of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS)
A member of the American Association of Intensive English Programs (AAIEP)

Mark40930

Check out ITT Technical Institute as well. They are an accredited school and usually you are able to transfer most if not all of your credits to other schools. The tuition cost can be formidable, but the quality of education you would get is worth it.

int80h

If youre going into technology and your school isn't accredited by ABET then you need to start looking elswhere. You can check if a schools program is acredited by ABET at their website:

http://www.abet.org/

oldbarney

okason wrote:

Please does anyone have a word or two for me, I am planning on enrolling for CIS degree course and at the moment the schools I am looking at are Devry and National University here in San Diego, CA. I want some feedback on their quality of education,Acreditation,Cost effectiveness and Name recognition (to employers) amongst other things.

I have been doing Helpdesk/Tech Support fo more than 2 yrs and I want to continue in that path to Helpdesk Level 3, and hopefully down the road to be qualified to apply for such positions like Sys Engineer,Sys Analyst and eventually CIO or any other title in that progression so I am thinking a CIS is more suited to help me advance in that direction but then the Admission guy I met at Devry today was telling me to take a look at Computer Engineering, is he right?

I already have A+ and N+, will be taking 70-270 soon, then will continue to work towards MCSA/E path.

Any thought even a sentence will be greately appreciated.

Personally, for online education, I recommend a public or private school in your state that has been around for a while, is regionally accredited, and known for academics rather than a strictly for-profit model.

Look at the California Virtual Campus for some ideas. Seems like Golden Gate University may have the program you want, although tuition is expensive.

DeVry is regionally accredited, at least according to the North Central Association website. From everything I've read, ITT is not regionally accredited.

One option may be to earn a 2-year IT degree from a local community college. Then pursue a bachelors from a university. You'll probably require more core classes than the 2-year IT degree plan requires.

Foothill College in CA seems to have some decent online programs, and alliances with other regionally accredited universities. Park University also has campuses on military bases in CA. Their nationwide online programs cost $242/semester hour.

dagger1x

While ABET looks to be a nice feather in your cap even they use regional accredidation as a standard

ABET accredits postsecondary degree-granting programs housed within regionally accredited institutions. ABET accredits programs only, not degrees, departments, colleges, or institutions.

TeKniques

Hi there,

I was just curious if there was anything wrong with San Diego State or University of San Diego? I don't know much about DeVry or National or whether they are accredited or not. If you're worried about that, best bets is to go to the State Universities. However, I do believe online education is very good and if the student is motivated can get just as much out of an online education as a ground campus.

Good luck.

Okason

Thank you all for your comments, while some aspects of these course can be done online, my intention is to do most of my classes onsite, so I am not looking for a purely online school( however the cost factor is making me take another thought about pure online program).
The deal with the state universities as you may know is time,some programs take more than 4 years to complete and the classes sometimes does not fit a working adult's schedule versus accelerated education that is designed for working adults and takes about 3 yrs to complete.

Talking about pure online education,is it something employers value?

Once again thanks you all for your time.

Badger95

You will find that many schools that offer online courses charge more for them. If you get a deg. from a traditional school, employers will not know the difference if you took your class online or in the classroom. Extended campuses for these schools tend to be more geared for adult learners who need night school. Employers will also not know if you took your classes at the extended campus or the main campus. It all shows as graduated from the main campus. They offer just as good instruction as the main campuses. If you need money give scholarships.com a look.

jpeezy55

I'm doing a Bachelor of Science program at a local University right now (just started a couple weeks ago). I was fortunate enough to have 60 credits that transfered in from a Technical Institute I went to for 14 months (they all transfered in to my Electives, but it's better than nothing!) I will finish the BS Degree in 2 1/2 years taking 2 courses every 8 weeks (with the usualy breaks in between). Several of my classes are Partially Online and some of the classes are 100% Online. This university charges $60 for patrially online and $120 for completely online classes on top of the cost of $460 per credit. When I am all said and done, it will be around $30,000 for all of this. But, it will all be worth it!

bighusker

Mark40930 wrote:

Check out ITT Technical Institute as well. They are an accredited school and usually you are able to transfer most if not all of your credits to other schools. The tuition cost can be formidable, but the quality of education you would get is worth it.

This statement is very inaccurate. ITT Tech is a for-profit company who readily admits credit transferability to other colleges is "limited."

They are nationally accredited, but not regionally accredited. You will most likely only be able to transfer your credits to other for-profit trade school. It's very unlikely that a regionally accredited college (i.e. a traditional 4-year college) will accept any transfer credits from ITT Tech. To suggest that they would accept "most if not all" of your credits from ITT Tech is laughable.

You'd be better off going to a community college. It will be cheaper, and your credits are more likely to transfer to 4 year colleges in your immediate area.