For profit /career colleges Vs. community/technical/university colleges..questions?

NetworkingStudent

For profit /career colleges Vs. community/technical/university colleges….some questions.

My background: I have attended ( and graduated in 2010) from a for profit college. I didn’t learn much because of the following reasons:
We had an altris server, which blocked a lot of network traffic.
After I got into the more advance classes, the teacher would ask students if we could do certain labs, because these labs weren’t meant to be used on a network that was locked down.
The other problem is that the teacher hadn’t taken the exam for the said class or used the technology in the work environment.

So my questions are:
What’s the difference between an IT degree from a for profit college vs. technical or community college? Is the quality better or worse? I’m looking for opinions from people that went to both.

Yes..I know about the regionally vs. non regional accreditation
and the cost is better at most state colleges

Are there colleges that teach you the stuff that employers are looking for? I have a short list below that I never learned in school, but it would have been nice to learn and would have made it easier to get a job. I have met alot of employers that are looking for these skills, just for an entry level position.

College never taught me things like:
Norton Ghost
Active Directory
Customer Service know this on my own, but they should have had a course
Exchange Server
SharePoint
Documentation
Phone equate/responding to a ticket
Creating/answer/and responding to tickets

Note-I have been to a technical college and a
community college in the past. I’m looking for opinions on what isthe difference between the amount and the quality of IT courses at a technical, community, or university vs a for profit college..

I really feel that I have learned more from my certs studies than from my degree.

NinjaBoy

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...
What’s the difference between an IT degree from a for profit college vs. technical or community college?

That's the wrong question, it should be: What are the differences between the IT degrees that are being offered? Some programs are more suited to others, hence why there are quite a few different IT/Computing/Computer Science degree programs out there.

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...Is the quality better or worse?

This is very dependent on the individual college/university.

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...I know about the regionally vs. non regional accreditation
and the cost is better at most state colleges

Good, what you have to watch out for are the degree and diploma mills that dish out qualifications that aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...Are there colleges that teach you the stuff that employers are looking for?

Yes, however for the most part it will be part of the vendor's own professional certification program.

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...

College never taught me things like:
Norton Ghost
, Active Directory
, Customer Service know this on my own, but they should have had a course
Exchange Server

SharePoint

Documentation

Phone equate/responding to a ticket

Creating/answer/and responding to tickets

It depends on the college and the program that they are delivering. For the most part it takes years to develop a course/module and then get that validated, then that course/module will run for X amount of years (eg 7 years). For a college to develop and run a module based on a specific version and have that run for X amount of years will be very hit and miss. Over the course of 7 years how many different versions of Exchange has there been? 3 - 2003, 2007 and 2010. And I have to say that 2003 and 2010 are very different. The same thing goes for other technologies. That's why some college's and Uni's are accepting certain professional certifications as part of their degree programs (eg WGU in the US and the OpenU in the UK).

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

...

I really feel that I have learned more from my certs studies than from my degree.

Different knowledge is gained from academic qualification, just like different knowledge is gained from professional qualifications.

powerfool

You are going to get classes that directly related to that many products. Many traditional universities now offer "academy" courses that focus on one vendor's products. For instance, they may participate in the Cisco Networking Academy, which would like include the CCNA and the courses would count as your electives for your degree. There is also a Microsoft IT Academy (which would include Active Directory) and VMware IT Academy. I am not sure of others. Honestly, those products that you list are best learned by using the products and working with the vendors or going, or with the case of Exchange and Sharepoint, self-study or a course at a training provider.

As far as soft skills, you just need to apply some common sense and learn from others that are good at it.

Zartanasaurus

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

College never taught me things like:
Norton Ghost
Active Directory
Customer Service know this on my own, but they should have had a course
Exchange Server
SharePoint
Documentation
Phone equate/responding to a ticket
Creating/answer/and responding to tickets

The traditional liberal arts curriculum is not supposed to teach you this. It is supposed to teach you writing, reading comprehension, logic and critical thinking. These are all skills that will help you no matter what your vocation is.

You are talking more about specialist degrees. Which can be taught at for-profit career schools as well as non-profit traditional universities. Both will give you the ability to be hands on with various technologies. Traditional universities will have more liberal arts requirements for graduation. They will teach you some of the building blocks IE networking, programming/scripting, databases, web development and system administration.

The difference and quality will vary. Yes you will learn more job essential functions from your cert studies as that is specific to whatever technology you are working on.