Troy vs. APUS on MACJ/MSCJ and teaching

Troy vs. APUS on MACJ/MSCJ

Okay this question is for those of you who teach. I would like to get into the online adjunct teaching game in Criminal Justice and am torn between two graduate programs.

Background and Possibilities:
Currently I work in law enforcement, primarily in security services. I would like to stay in law enforcement but do not mind the idea of perhaps taking over an executive security position one day. So the degree has 2 purposes, qualify me to teach, qualify me to manage both private security and law enforcement operations.

The Degree Programs:
The American Public University MACJ= 12 credit hours and I can focus on “security” operations, etc. which I feel will also qualify me for private security executive positions, etc. I can take up to 12 credit hours in security and Disaster Management……..

Or

The Troy University MSCJ which is almost exclusive to the study of traditional Criminal Justice topics.

Both would qualify me to teach, i.e. 18 grad hours + in Criminal Justice. Neither degree has a “specialization” per se, and both will simply be a MACJ or MSCJ on the transcript and diploma, the difference is in the curriculum.

So when all is said and done, I can honestly say with an MACJ from APUS I would be qualified for private security operations or disaster management since I can tailor my degree curriculum to 12 grad hours in disaster management and security.

With Troy I would get the greater name recognition of the University but the curriculum would be strictly CJ………which I don’t know if that would necessarily qualify me for security executive positions in the future or not, but I suspect that most people view CJ and Security as almost interchangeable, even though they are not. Do you agree?

The Troy and APUS degree cost pretty much the same as well.

So which would you do if you were me?

 

Forgot to ask, is name recognition a big deal between these two schools? It's not as if either is Harvard but Troy has a football team, big student body, etc. so their name is more familiar.

 

Regarding teaching, the utility of both degrees seems pretty good. However, if you want to be an executive in the security field, then having a specialization in security operations is much better. If you focus exclusively on CJ (instead of security), then it will not prepare you for an executive level position in security because security operations are vastly different from law enforcement, IMO. Learning about retail security (internal and external thefts) is different from the broken windows theory in CJ. That's just one example of many that makes law enforcement different from security operations. If you had a specialization in security in your Masters degree, it would make you much more marketable as a security executive.

My .02

 

Only problem is, neither degree will allow for a specialization, they will read exactly the same. Only the actual curriculum is different.

 

If that's the case, then go for the security curriculum because it will help you to be a security executive. I speculate that it would address unique security issues, such as reducing internal and external thefts so that a corporation will have higher profit levels, hiring practices for loss prevention officers, running a security firm, etc.