Bachelor's Degree Advice

Hello All!

As the title of the thread states, I need advice on what degree to pursue starting in Janruary. A little background info about me to help any of you who help me out. I'm currently at a two year internship with a large law firm getting exposure to both IT Help Desk and Deskside Support. I accepted the internship and started the beginning of September, and this internship ideally lasts over the student's junior and senior year of college. I was very excited about this opportunity becasue I really like the company. I'm also currently going to Community College to get a second Associates Degree. I will recieve my degree in December of this year and I need help deciding on where to go. I talked to my supervisors here at my internship, and they told me it's ultimately up to me and where my interests are. I'm debating between two schools: Western Governors University where I will major in IT - Security or Dakota State University where I'm interested in both their Cyber Operations B.S. Degree or their Network and Security Administration B.S. degree. The pros for WGU are obviously the numerous certs I would get along with the degree (I currently don't have any but was able to land this IT internship) and the cost. The Pros for DSU are it's a well-known state school and one of the best security schools in the country, but it doesn't offer any industry certs in the degree. Their Cyber Operations degree is highly regarded by the NSA and Dakota State is one of four schools in the nation to recieve Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations. I really like both schools and i'm interested in the security field. I have researched though extensivley and realize nobody starts in security, they usually start in NOC, help desk etc. and work their way up. My question is which one do you guys feel would provide me with the better value in the long run? Do you think its better to go to WGU and recieve numerous certs and a degree? or would it be better to go to a well-known state school who specializes in security and pursue a B.S. degree there (note: If I went to DSU, I would probably self-study for security certifications while in school so I'm not lacking in interviews) Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you all!

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redz

WGU if you're built for the lack of structure. If you're not, then, whatever, DSU.

Repeat after me: "The name of the institution where I received my degree will not ever open any doors for me after I get my first job."

EDIT: And of course what I mean by that is, you'll still be in debt from your semesters at DSU long after you've left the first job you get; WGU is a substantially smarter financial investment.

DissonantData

Not going to comment on WGU, but it might me better to major in Information Systems/Information Technology or Computer Science IMO if you're going to go to a state school. That way, you can have a more broad generalist background. From what I've heard, it takes experience in a particular area (such as networking or systems administration) before you can go into security. After getting your IS or CS degree, the certs should give you all the technical knowledge you need. After you get some experience, maybe then you can go for a masters in information security or something like that.

NetworkVeteran

redz wrote: »

Repeat after me: "The name of the institution where I received my degree will not ever open any doors for me after I get my first job."

That's false, for the employers I've worked for. Even a dozen years into the workforce, they don't ignore that one person went to MIT and another went to an unranked school, and meeting alumni is almost always fortuitous.

WGU also doesn't offer some of the most in-demand degrees like CS and EE.

I will add, many people here have gone to WGU and done very well for themselves. It's certainly a viable option. I would directly discuss your concerns with the "Cyber Operations" program with an academic advisor for Dakota State. E.g., "What are the most common outcomes--how likely would I be to jump directly into security?" My school did regular exit interviews and follow-up interviews and would've been able to answer this with hard evidence.

Getting to know the professors who are doing original research in security and perhaps helping them work on their projects can be great for making connections. If I had gone the security route at my school, I would've been confident in getting a job directly. Similarly, I entered the networking field, as was able to skip NOC and help desk positions.

Cost's worth considering. The ROI on my degree was fantastic. Your mileage may vary.

ptilsen

redz wrote: »

Repeat after me: "The name of the institution where I received my degree will not ever open any doors for me after I get my first job."

That's an impossible claim to back up, and plenty would dispute it. Anecdotes of receiving jobs based on school name recognition alone prove it false. There's a legitimate claim in saying something along the lines of "most employers don't care about school prestige" or "most employers don't care about school prestige after you've gained industry experience," and I would agree with those claims, although they're opinions that would be hard to prove. But "not ever" is not something I can agree with, nor should anyone take it seriously.

redz wrote:

And of course what I mean by that is, you'll still be in debt from your semesters at DSU long after you've left the first job you get; WGU is a substantially smarter financial investment.

This one's almost as hard. Not knowing if OP will take out loans, get grants, how long he'll go, or how long he'll stay at his first job make this a tough claim to back up. DSU is roughly $10,000 /year for out of state. It could easily be repaid if he's only going to need two years worth of school. If the DSU degree led to even a 1% average lifetime salary increase over WGU, it would easily pay for any delta in their costs.

Despite this criticism, I don't really disagree with what redz is saying at a base level, and I'll probably agree with his recommendation. I haven't really seen anything to indicate DSU is really a big name in the industry. The NSA designation is nice, but I've seen even less evidence it actually makes that big of a difference. The actual quality of the education may be reflected by it, which is something to consider. One thing I will say against WGU's favor is that there really is no education being provided. It's "teach yourself this stuff and take a test and here's your degree." DSU might actually have something valuable in its curriculum that WGU doesn't. WGU certainly doesn't have anything you can't get without attending WGU other than the degree. Anothert

On the other hand, "teach yourself this stuff and take a test and here's your degree" could really describe almost every online class and even most traditional classes. No matter how good the education, at some level you're teaching yourself more than anything. The university just provides the curriculum.

Circling back, WGU makes a lot of sense for IT professionals. It's quick, cheap, comes with certs, and gets you a regionally accredited degree that will help get you in the door for an interview certainly at some organizations, and possibly at a good majority of them.

I think you should really look at the curriculum and try to find reviews on the program or even the professors, assuming DSU's online programs at least use professors. I'm not saying don't go there, but don't go there just because of CAE or it's a bit more prestigious. For an extra $10-25, it needs to be more than just a slightly better piece of paper.

One other thing is that if you think you are on a path to a master's degree, it may not matter at all. For getting an IS/IA/cybersecurity master's, it is very unlikely DSU will get you into anything WGU won't. If you wanted a computer science degree, this would be a different story.

redz

I'll rephrase, as I appear to have pissed everyone off.

The vast majority of employers use resume-churning programs that note that you have a degree and will be automated to weigh that against requirements and spit out a small set of resumes most closely resembling job requirements to the HR person, who then doesn't bother to read them, but forwards them to the hiring manager or interviewer. The machines do not care what school you attended. They care that you have a degree. 85% of the value of a degree is getting interviews. 10% is what your degree is in (0% if it's a State/US Government or Government contract support position), 5% is name recognition and a leg up on other similarly qualified interviewees who do not have degrees. Therefore, having a degree has become a prerequisite check in the box, much like many certifications.

Business degrees are a notable exception, but prestige business schools tend to be more heavily involved in networking with the future leaders of everything than in teaching business.

As far as a bachelor's degree, I would go for the cheapest available. If you honestly feel it's holding you back, use it to get a Master's from a different school.

EDIT: Of course, I've had great ROI on not ever getting a degree, but my style of job hunting vastly differs from most.

sratakhin

Redz, are you saying that having a degree from an Ivy-league school is about the same as having a degree from whatever-state-university?

redz

In all government and government support cases, yes, it is literally exactly the same. In private sector, it's still going to primarily serve to get you an interview, and initially interviews you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, but still will not get you a job. It also depends on the job field. I already mentioned business, but landscape architecture is very regionally biased due to plant types/etc. IT Security doesn't happen to be one of those fields, unless you intend to go into security research or cryptography.

You need interviewing skills and a basic understanding of business. At that point it won't matter what school you attended. I beat out 25-30 interviewed candidates for my current position, which required a degree, without one.

EDIT: Unless you intend to be a fully qualified navy validator, that requires a specific course of study - must be either IT or business related. But I've had plenty of engineering leads who got their jobs because they had degrees in, like, music theory (LOL government hiring).

ptilsen

redz wrote: »

In all government and government support cases, yes, it is literally exactly the same.

Can't say that either. Government hiring decisions, as with all hiring decisions, are made by people. If the hiring manager went to Stanford and so did another candidate, that may well be a major deciding factor. Now it may not be a factor in considering candidates or in official policies on pay, but that doesn't make it a non-factor.

redz wrote: »

You need interviewing skills and a basic understanding of business. At that point it won't matter what school you attended. I beat out 25-30 interviewed candidates for my current position, which required a degree, without one.

Yes and no. I've been quite successful without a good degree and I was successful before I even finished that one. My experience and yours don't negate the value of more reputable institutions, however. Had it come down to a similar candidate whose only differentiator was a degree or a "better" degree, I can't imagine either of us would ever have won out. There's no question that there are other factors which are usually more important, but that doesn't mean we should pretend degrees (or that more prestigious degrees) have no value in the market.

As far as RoI and anecdotes, for all of us who have degrees, don't have degrees, have crappy degrees, or have great ones, at the end of the day we don't and can't really know how our lives to date would have gone had we chosen different paths. We can speculate using what evidence we have, but we can't make sweeping positive claims. We can correlate, but rarely find proof of cause.

For me, my two-year degree has not ostensibly done anything. Of the employers who have interviewed and hired me after I earned it, I've been told the degree was not a major factor and that I was far and away the better candidate in every instance. What I don't know is how many interviews I haven't gotten because I don't have a bachelor's. Of course, the same could be said about an MCSE, CCNA, CCNP, CISSP, and a plethora of other certifications I've considered at some point.

My best guesswork, based on my experiences and what people in the industry (largely people on this site) say, is that all of these things have at least some marginal value, but few are ever requirements or hard rules other than for specific jobs or specializations. My opinion does match redz', however; I think one's soft qualities like interviewing skills, general business knowledge, and resume quality are individual more important hiring determinants than degrees, certifications, and even job experience. Following that, actual ability to perform the job and some way to indicate that in your resume and interviews is what really counts. Certifications and degrees just help act as proof or indications of that ability.

Anyway, getting back to the original topic, I do have to stress that if OP is getting an IS/IA/cybersecurity undergrad and has an plans to go to grad school, WGU becomes even more attractive since, again, it will get you into just about any such master's programs and once you have a graduate degree, the undergraduate generally becomes much less important.

redz

ptilsen wrote: »

If the hiring manager went to Stanford and so did another candidate, that may well be a major deciding factor.

And if they went to WGU, then? We're kind of talking about a coin flip at this point.

EDIT: I'm going to walk away from this thread, I've said all I have to, and I think I may be bordering on rude at this point.
Madmd5, I wish you the best of luck in your choice, whichever it may be, and should you ever need help in your studies, I am absolutely here for you with the rest of the TE community. Much love all

flyingjimmyb

What about UMUCs programs? How do they rank against WGU and DSU?

instant000

Please don't use that watered-down "center of excellence" system as any true indicator of what the NSA wants to see.

If you want to be serious about security in a way that the NSA likes it, then major in Computer Science and take the highest maths you can.

According to this page: Cyber Careers at NSA

they like these majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics

If you go to this page about the information security curriculum: The Colloquium

you will discover that schools are interested in making curricula that students can complete, not necessarily making them the most rigorous and best prepared to work in computer security.

If you want the best security education you can get, it will be on you to provide it to yourself. (Other posters have basically said this already.)

If you want to make a curriculum that the NSA likes, then go online, to their careers site, and apply for one of their jobs:
Cyber Careers at NSA

During the application, you'll get the opportunity to specify exactly what CS and Math courses you have taken during your studies. This lets you know what really matters to them. Don't be confused by watered-down school programs. Schools want students to graduate.

I'd advise you to go through an application for the type of job you want, and see what types of courses they want you to have, and build your degree program accordingly.

You have been informed.

I hope this helps.

NetworkVeteran

What about UMUCs programs? How do they rank against WGU and DSU?

You can review one of the most popular rankings of colleges here--

Best Colleges | College Rankings | US News Education

Dakota State: #86 in the Midwest region.
UMUC: Unranked.
WGU: Not listed.

The best-ranked schools are not just well-known names, but also tend to have higher-quality courses and outcomes. Rankings for a particular degree program are more relevant and I would prefer those when available.

instant0 wrote:

They like these majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics

Good info.

flyingjimmyb

Sorry didn’t mean rank in an usnews ranking but how do they compare to each other? I am enrolled at UMUC at the military rate so that was a huge factor but was just wondering what the thought was on UMUC and how it compares to the other two schools.

NetworkVeteran

How they compare, in what way?

When hiring, in the absence of much first-hand information about UMUC/DSU, I would rely on that ranking.

ptilsen

redz wrote: »

And if they went to WGU, then? We're kind of talking about a coin flip at this point.

Well, relatively few people have even heard of WGU, much less gone there, so I wouldn't call it a coin flip. Even outside of fellow alumni hiring managers, the Stanford grad will likely look more fondly about an MIT, CMU, Berkeley, or UW-Madison CS degree than he or she would on a WGU (or DSU, for that matter), degree. And actually, I think most hiring managers probably would. Even on the topic of alumni, I doubt that conversely, WGU grads have much bias towards other WGU grads. WGU grads probably are more willing to disregard (or less-strongly-regard, anyway) a candidate's education.

redz wrote:

EDIT: I'm going to walk away from this thread, I've said all I have to, and I think I may be bordering on rude at this point.
Madmd5, I wish you the best of luck in your choice, whichever it may be, and should you ever need help in your studies, I am absolutely here for you with the rest of the TE community. Much love all

I don't think you're being rude or anyone in particular is offended. At least, I'm not. However, I think you should reconsider how black-and-white the world is. My personal experiences are not so different from yours and help corroborate the same worldview, but I don't share your opinions, at least not to the degree you hold them. The world is just not as simple as what we see. Even the US IT job market, more narrowly, is not as simple as what we see.

Very good info on the NSA stuff, and not surprising. They are dealing more with cryptography than with security operations. I certainly haven't seen any hard evidence that anyone in particular cares about CAE other than a few people on TechExams. I would still consider it because it probably correlates with legitimately good coursework, but I wouldn't think much of it as far as improving the perception of the credential in the market. Let's remember that the perception of degree value and actual applicability of the course work are very often disconnected.

ptilsen

flyingjimmyb wrote: »

Sorry didn’t mean rank in an usnews ranking but how do they compare to each other? I am enrolled at UMUC at the military rate so that was a huge factor but was just wondering what the thought was on UMUC and how it compares to the other two schools.

US News is a fairly commonly used source, but you can also look at online reviews, Ratemyprofessor, things like that. Subjective, personal analyses of the quality of the coursework can be really valuable in comparing schools, courses, and programs. Graduation and transfer rates are also nice, as our average salaries of grads if you can find them. From what I've seen from people on TechExams and from what I know, I don't have a positive overall impression of UMUC. It doesn't seem to over anything concrete over WGU, and has some disadvantages. That being said, I haven't heard anything so drastic that would lead me to recommend you drop out or anything like that. It's not ITT Technical Institute or anything like that.

LarryDaMan

Of course a very highly ranked or prestigious school will generally open more doors. That is the way of the world. A super nice car might get you a prettier girl and a great fashion sense might get you past the doorman at that exclusive nightclub. Better quality education? Maybe. Maybe not. But perception is reality.

These forums are highly biased towards WGU and that's fine, but who are we kidding? In the end, you can do fine with any degree I'm sure. ROI might swing things in favor of a WGU. But, someone is hitting the pipe too hard if they think WGU opens the same doors as a top ranked school.

networker050184

LarryDaMan wrote: »

Of course a very highly ranked or prestigious school will generally open more doors. That is the way of the world. A super nice car might get you a prettier girl and a great fashion sense might get you past the doorman at that exclusive nightclub. Better quality education? Maybe. Maybe not. But perception is reality.

This is really what it comes down to, perfect analogy IMO. Does anyone honestly think hearing WGU perks as many hiring managers ears as MIT? Of course not but that doesn't mean the guy from MIT is any better than the guy from WGU. That's just the way the world works.

neo9006

I think if you have the degree, it should personally not matter from where. I am not getting my degree from a Tier 1 school even though the main system campus of where I go is a Tier 1 level school now. Your degree will help you, but get that Bachelors. I was in the same boat going after my second degree from where I got my associate degree from then switched schools to get my bachelors. I say just keep an open mind on things and work toward where you really want to go. I might go after my master's after I get done not sure yet. As you will hear quite often in here, experience counts, so congrats on that internship. That will help you out in the long run. Keep trucking and good luck.