Round and round,but still stuck in the same place.

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by berniejr, Apr 26, 2007.

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  1. berniejr

    berniejr New Member

    Trying to decide which path to take is starting to become a bigger task than actually taking classes in my search for a Master's degree. Based on criteria of low price and shorter terms and/or self-paced study, I've narrowed my choices of schools down to:

    Amberton University
    Aspen University
    Western Governors University
    Touro University International

    Now I need to decide which field of study will benefit me the most. Initially I was set on doing my MBA, and then I drifted away from that to a Masters of Human Relations and Business. Initially I felt like doing a Masters in IT was somewhat redundant. Over the last week or so I have re-evaluated this over and over, and still I am no further along than when I first started. Here are the facts that will help me decide the best path to take. I am an IT professional with 13 years experience in a Senior Level/middle management role. I've always had aspirations to venture off and start my own business, but in the real world, where I have a wife and 3 kids, financially I am finding it hard to walk away from my current situation because as far as jobs go it's great! The pay, the hours, the benefits, etc. are all way above what I could find elsewhere in the same position. Somewhere down the line I would live to teach IT at the college level, once I finally get tired of the corporate grind. In the past I fought moving up the ladder into a management role, but the cold hard truth is that's where the money and opportunities are at, so if I am going to stay corporate I need to play the game. With all of that in mind I think that my Masters would be the key for me successfully climbing that ladder. One of my main reasons for not wanting to do my MBA is due to the fact of having to take Accounting, Finance, and Econ courses. I took all of them in undergrad, as I was initially a Business minor; however I hated all of them with a passion. But in some ways I feel that an MBA with an IT concentration is way more marketable than say a Master’s of Science in IT Management, at least in corporate America. The Aspen programs while only NA, are so ridiculously inexpensive, that I almost don't feel that I can ignore going that route. The WGU program is great because it's completely self-paced and seems to be well respected within the IT community, seeing how most of the major players are part of its advisory board.
    So with all of this information in hand, what would (or have done) you do and why?
    The Masters in Human Relations and Business to try and set yourself apart?
    A Masters from Aspen and hope that it would allow me to teach down the road?
    A Masters from Touro in MSITM
    A MBA-IT for WGU, just have to suck it up and do the accounting, Fin, Econ, etc.
    Or something else that I might have missed?

    Thanks in advance for your time and input.
     
  2. makana793

    makana793 New Member

    My thoughts. I chose Amberton for couple reasons. The cost was low and since I was using military TA my out of pocket expenses were great as well. I also chose Amberton because I wanted something broad (M.S Human Relations & Business). Also, Amberton accepts up to 12 credits in transfer work. I have a grad cert. in public admin. from ISU so they accpeted those credits. In a nutshell, inexpensive, broad coursework and ease of transfer credits is what made the decision easy for me.
     
  3. PhD2B

    PhD2B Dazed and Confused

    Why don't you look into an MS in information systems? There are a lot of IT guys in my courses.
     
  4. berniejr

    berniejr New Member

    PhD2B, most of the MIS programs seem to be geared more towards the programming track and that's not really my cup of tea. Back in my inital days of college I started as a Computer Science Major and quickly got burned out from programming.

    makana793, the tranfer policy is another thing that appeals to me about Amberton. The one thing that I need to do is to see if IT courses would transfer in. If so then I would be able to maybe do 12 hours in and IT related capacity and the remaining hours from business and human relation courses.
     
  5. PhD2B

    PhD2B Dazed and Confused

    I am not a programmer. My courses don't all seem to be focused around programming. If they were, I would have never enrolled.

    Here are a list of courses required for the MSIS.

    INFS 720 Systems Analysis and Design Using Case-based Tools
    INFS 724 Project and Change Management
    INFS 730 Programming for E Commerce
    INFS 750 IT Infrastructure, Technology and Network Management
    INFS 760 Enterprise Modeling, and Data Management
    INFS 780 Information Technology Strategy and Policy

    + 3 courses in Data Management, Electronic Commerce, Network Administration and Security, or Healthcare Information Systems.
     

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