[Sola]

Hi all,

I'm pretty sure this might be my first thread, so I hope I've put it under the right forum.

This past year I've been undertaking a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) degree at Curtin Uni in WA, while working part time. A few weeks ago me and my partner found out we're having a baby , so I'll be moving to working full time while studying pretty close to full time. I'm having to make the move to studying fully external (online) and I'm doing it through Open Uni's Australia, which is pretty much just an admin desk for whichever uni your degree is through.

I've been looking through the site for a couple of weeks and I'm deciding to go down the IT path degree wise as this was a close second choice to economics.

My question is about Bachelor of Technology (Information Systems) through Swinburne University
Link is below
https://www.open.edu.au/secure/cours...i-cis-deg-2011

I understand that this degree prob won't lead to programming straight away (I may do further studies if I decide that's what I want to do) it'll probably lead to Business Analyst type work.

I guess I don't have a question specifically, but as this is a big amount of time I'm about to dedicate I wouldn't mind just some general information/suggestions on what people think. I haven't been with SC2SEA for long but I've found it to be a very helpful and informative place.

Anyway, hope this isn't too vague, just trying to get a general idea of where this will lead and pls let me know if you require more specific info.

Cheers

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

Grats on your baby!! :)

[DtorR]

Have you also checked out the whirlpool forums, you might find more information there with some people in similar situations that have asked before. Normally I would suggest a careers advisor to help but depends what kind of job you want after you achieve your bachelors. Sadly I am not in the IT industry nor did I study it but you can look up subjects involved in the degree and do some personal research on them to determine whether you might enjoy it or not.

[Sola]

Yeah I've read all of the posts on Whirlpool regarding IT. Haven't spoken to a career adviser as of yet, though I'm going to call on Wednesday.
Cheers for the help.

[Bloodmyst]

Honestly, it all depends what you want to do in the industry.

Programming, yeh... you need the uni degree. But apart from that, most other sectors in the IT industry you don't need any uni degree.

Personally, I find programming sooo freaking boring.

I'm a System Network Engineer and have been so for the past 4 years now. I'm earning enough to keep me happy, pay the bills and save at the same time without any struggle. Just for reference, I only have a Certificate 3 in IT. I actually have a lot of uni graduates work under me and I can tell you now, yes they have the required knowledge to perform the task effectively. However, the difference is I didn't have to pay so much money for my education.

There is a point where once you gain enough experience in the industry, your qualifications don't mean diddly squat.

This is only in regards to IT I'm talking about with "Programming as an exception."

I suggest you write down all the reasons you want to study IT and what you want to achieve. You may not have to do 4 years of study at all, when you can in fact just do it in 1 year with a different qualification.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

[crAzerk]

Sorry I'm just kinda confused as you started with:

"My question is about Bachelor of ..."

and then

"I guess I don't have a question specifically,.."

Lol was quite confused when I read that. Are you asking like, what do people think of an IT degree? Should you pursue it? Is that college good?
May get yourself more answers... if you include some guiding questions in the first place

[Sola]

I definitely want to do the degree as having the degree gives me more flexibility to completely change into something else If I ever need to later in life with graduate entry into another degree/program and it'll cut the additional degree time greatly.

For instance, when I first entered Uni I was really interested in Preclinical Human Biology, even done some units in it. But decided not to do that due to how hard it is to get jobs in research. While Paramedical Science doesn't require you to have a degree to apply to become a paramedic, they pretty much say these days there's hardly a chance you will get in if you don't have a degree. It doesn't matter what degree, having any degree shows a constant dedication to work and that you can stick to something for that time. It's just an interest I have and one I would like to have available in the future.

I guess what I'm worried/wondering about is the Bachelor of Technology part. OuA does have an economics/finance type degree but it is a Bachelor of Business not a Bachelor of Commerce and that makes a massive difference in job opportunities and what you can apply for, some companies don't even look at Bach of Business for certain positions.

Is the same considered between Bachelor of Technology and Bachelor of Science(IT), I think that was the underlying question I couldn't think of at the time.

Thanks for your responses.

[syfChadMann]

I can say from experience - Full time uni and Child isn't easy.. but do-able.. I've been lucky that I haven't needed to work - mainly because I took time off after high school and did well with savings etc...
I think you need to work out what your goals are after study.. what do you want to do for a career etc..

Other thing to consider.. is always go for your goals... If you want to invest your career in IT.. then go for it!

Good luck with the lil one!..

Quick Comments

zeffrin:

I hate you... I had to get a job immediately after leaving school or learn to survive without food :(

[Zepph]

I'm studying IT full time at university right now. The great thing about it is you can choose your major - whether you go down the businessy side (so more towards systems analyst kind of jobs) or the programming side(which I have selected), however I'm not quite sure how it works for the particular degree you're looking at. It's really flexible and there are a ton of electives you can take for it, so usually you can get the best of both worlds.

Seeing as the IT industry is always growing it's got a lot of work available, and if you have a uni degree over say a TAFE degree they will pick you over another applicant, unless that other applicant has much more relevant experience to whereby the degree doesn't matter (as kiP was saying).

I think you've made a smart choice doing it through open universities to suit your time constraints but keep in mind that you're still going to be very busy once the workload picks up. Perhaps you can manage to pick your subjects in a way that won't get too crazy if you know a certain subject will require a little more of your time. But good luck with your studies and congrats on your baby !

[Sola]

At work ATM, so I'll jump on tonight and reply properly. Just wanted to say cheers everyone.

[Halstrom]

I've been in the Corporate IT industry for about 11 years, and did small IT for many years before that, and the short answer to your question is..........it depends what you want to do!!!

There are plenty of IT jobs out there and different courses will prepare you for different things, however IT is an industry of experience. Employers will look more at your degree to demonstrate the types of skills you can learn and at what rate, rather than what you know. Programming languages and specific technologies aside, 80% of IT stuff isn't taught at Uni (at least when I did it). You will learn concepts in your studies that you will only understand and build upon with experience, and I guarantee that different companies will do things differently to what you will expect.

You should also know that a large portion of students don't go straight into main professions. For example, many Comp Sci students will start their careers as testers or support staff before going near development. Usually only the better performing students will land a programming job straight out of uni, so be careful of thinking that doing a Software Engineering major in a Comp Sci will take you straight to where you want to go. This, of course, varies between locations because of vacancies. For example, IT has ALWAYS struggled to get people to work in Canberra, where a lot of government.

As for the job side, I'd suggest sitting down and writing what you want from your future career. Most importantly, be honest with yourself. Maybe you don't care so much about what you do as long as it isn't boring and it pays ok. Perhaps you HAVE to feel like you're doing something meaningful. Whatever the key motivators are, write them down and mark them as must have or like to have.

Next, do an honest assessment of what a job actually is and compare it with your list. For example, a programming job is one where you (mostly) work on your own, starring at a screen for hours trying to pick apart or reassemble computer logic (in whatever form). Also remember that there are many more programmers trying to understand and maintain old code than there are building wondrous new digital toys. Does this suit you?

So as I said, there is no easy answer. Much of it depends on what your own expectations are.

Because the above is a bit airy fairy for your direct questions, I thought I'd note a couple of things that might help:

Courses
- Bach. of Science based courses are much more technically based than Business courses in general, however they 'sometimes' share units, so make sure you check out the subjects in detail.
- Sci based courses will focus on the technology implementation, whereas Business units will likely look more at how IT solutions can benefit business.
- Business IT units are often much easier than Sci based ones ( I remember one business base web unit that was basically learning HTML, which I had already taught myself)
- Programming STRUCTURES and concepts are far more important than specific languages and technology. (Object Oriented Design, etc.)
- Popular industry product skills can be useful to get a head start on, such as Oracle Database Admin skills. Talk to people in the industry to find out which might suit you based on the kind of career you are thinking of.

Career Considerations
- Find out the commodity skills in your local IT market (I.e. the skills that are common but there is a lot of demand for). Commodity skills won't make you indispensable, but will ensure it's easier to get a job. Getting into this game might make it easier to mover around, but may also cause some issues if the industry downturns.
- Pick the indispensable roles. For example, companies will ALWAYS require databases, and in fact data is now far more valuable than applications to business. This makes roles such as Oracle DBA's key to a great many companies.
- Ride the wave where you can, but beware of gimmicks. For example, true Web Development (as opposed to web authoring) is a huge growth area. Basically businesses are finding that you HAVE to be on the web, even in retail. Unlike the DotCom bubble of yesteryear, eCommerce and Web Advertising is here to stay. Find these growth areas and look at them to ensure they are sustainable and required (not just a nice to have for businesses).
- Show you are keen by learning a little bit more. For example, as a programmer, do what you can to read about new development methodologies such as Agile (xtreme programming, SCRUM, or others). Think about how they would impact business positively, and what the risks might be. Dropping this stuff into interviews will score you brownie points for actually thinking about more then just cutting code.


Anyways....probably more in there than you can process for now I hope it helps. Best of luck with work, uni, and baby. You'll have your hands full!!!

Quick Comments

	Zepph:	wow :) nice insight
	Sola:	Awesome info man, thanks.
	zeffrin:	excellent post, agreed... especially about maintaning vs developing, even are you make something fancy you spend the next year developing it

[freaky_beeky]

I think you've really got to work out what you want to get out of this. If you already know then that's great, it just doesn't come across that way.

From what I understand, the main reason you want a degree is because you want to be able to use the fact that you’ve got a degree to potentially get into another degree later.

So upon completion of your degree you either use that to apply for jobs, or you use it to get into another degree. As you’ve just started a new family (congratulations btw) and are talking about increasing your hours for further support, I’m going to assume you’re going to be the main source of income. Given this assumption I expect that when you complete your degree you’re going to use it rather than study again for a few more years.

If this is the case, the question comes down to what do you actually want to achieve?

For Example:

If becoming a programmer/developer like you suggest in your OP
What type of development did you want to go into?
Web
Mobile
Desktop Applications
Windows/*nix

Building Degree for Management Business
Industry?
Project Manager?
Operations Manger?

If you don’t want to do these types of jobs and would prefer to do some more client focused roles I would suggest that you’re going about it the wrong way and should be taking the advice of Zepph and going and doing a TAFE cert to build your basic knowledge or applying for a traineeship or similar “on the job” training to consolidate both your study and work. If you still want to go back and do a degree there is nothing stopping you from applying as a mature age student and with some funding behind your back I have very little doubt that you would be disallowed acceptance into any of the degree’s you’ve mentioned.

As a final note I’d also like to throw on a +1 to the experience trumps qualifications in I.T very quickly that both kip and Zepph mentioned. Soon your degree and qualifications will be replaced by completed projects and experience (again with the exception of early-mid stages of programming).

EDIT: Having just read Halstrom's post (a very fine post it is indeed) I would like to put my support behind everything he states there. However I would add the following warning; As a general rule DBA's are weird, but Oracle DBA's are a whole weird unto themselves, if you choose that path there is no helping you.

Quick Comments

Sola:

Cheers

[Halstrom]

Originally Posted by freaky_beeky

EDIT: Having just read Halstrom's post (a very fine post it is indeed) I would like to put my support behind everything he states there. However I would add the following warning; As a general rule DBA's are weird, but Oracle DBA's are a whole weird unto themselves, if you choose that path there is no helping you.

Hahaha....true. One of many specific IT roles usually reserved for "special personalities"

[dazaris]

As others have said I wouldn't really recommend a university degree unless you have plans to pursue a career in programming and in that case you'd probably want either a degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering rather than in IT. A degree in IT definitely will look nice on your CV, but the IT industry has more emphasis put on industry certifications and experience.

If you're looking for something to do with Systems Administration or Network Support you're actually much better off getting the relevant industry certifications that are out there (e.g. a MSCITP cert for working with Windows Server 2003/2008, or CCNA for general network support stuff). Having a look on on a job search website like seek.com.au for the different requirements for the role you're looking to be employed in should help you to get an idea of what employers are looking for as far as education and experience are concerned.

Hope that helps.

[Sola]

Wow, thanks all for the awesome information, suggestions and advice.

I've decided to go with the degree that I posted at the start of this thread, as enrollment closes this morning and I had to make a decision.

Sorry if my posts were a bit of a circle of confusion >.<, wasn't really expecting this and I was cruising through my economics degree and doing well. I think I just had so many idea's/thoughts, I had a hard time getting them out in an understandable way to others (and even myself).

I definitely was decided on undertaking a degree over a certificate, mainly due to the ease of transition into another completely different field later in life if I ever want to, it would just be that much easier. I fully intend and look forward to working in IT for a long while though.

At the moment I'm in the middle of re-writing my resume and applying for a full time job. I'll probably work in an office type environment as I'm used to that, but I might put out a few resumes just out of hope to some IT business's. Never know might get lucky lol, doubts it though.

Thanks heaps for all the info it all helped awesomely.

Oh one thing I didn't understand is the DBA's/Oracle DBA's I've no idea what that lil inside joke meant haha

[ToRsupapower]

my mum tried to do uni when i was a kid, it didn't turn out to well, she almost got her degree go for it if you want, it's going to help

[Nemo]

DBA : Data Base Administrator. Oracle is one of the most used Database system in Industry (if not the most).

In , I have a team of J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) programmers and they are awfully hard to find (at least good ones). Their salary is skyrocketing in consequence of that.

It's probably the same for this type of programmer everywhere in the world and it will be for a long time as it is quite intellectually demanding for learning.

[zeffrin]

Check to make sure your degree won't have practicals you have to attend. I studied corro with USQ who were fantastic, materials and everything really good but... there are some components have to travel to the campus and stay for a few weeks at a time to attend. ow

If you want programming do computer science rather than info tech. woot

Quick Comments

syfChadMann:

I reply to your rep comment on my post: I worked hard for years after finishing school - so I didn't have to while studying.... no need for hate bro.

[Sola]

Definitely no practicals, it's all fully external. Thanks though.

[Sola]

Oh and that's something I forgot to say in my larger reply post. Computer Science, although I'd definitely like to do it, isn't possible because I haven't found anywhere, where they offer it fully online.

Quick Comments

zeffrin:

Oh well dont worry about it... just select all the programming electives

[Sola]

I've read through the other IT degree that is offered through OuA and it seems to be very programming orientated. I've spoken to the OuA admin and they are letting me change to it if I want to, I need to call them back today though.

Bachelor of Technology (Computer Studies)
https://www.open.edu.au/secure/cours...his-course-tab

It looks to be something more suitable for me as it's more programming.

Thanks once more.