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The value of Master's of Information Systems is far less than an MBA. Perhaps if you are an older person that would otherwise be unlikely to have a shot at a supervisory role in the rare organization that still has "guidelines" that prefer to promote holders of advanced degrees (which is pretty much limited to government or higher education...) it makes sense to pursue this option but even then the "return on investment" is questionable -- probably better to get an MBA from a school like DePaul...
The value of Master's of Information Systems is far less than an MBA. Perhaps if you are an older person that would otherwise be unlikely to have a shot at a supervisory role in the rare organization that still has "guidelines" that prefer to promote holders of advanced degrees (which is pretty much limited to government or higher education...) it makes sense to pursue this option but even then the "return on investment" is questionable -- probably better to get an MBA from a school like DePaul...
Does anyone have any experience with this program? Does the NU degree really open doors? Is the program any good?
It might sometimes keep your resume from being tossed, but it's not going to get you a job on its own.
The fact that you say "break into IT" tells us that you don't know what you want to do and you (probably) don't know enough about the various disciplines within IT to specify which one or ones of them you're interested in doing.
Saying you want to "break into IT" is like saying you want to "do something in health care." It's an absurdly broad context.
In general, unless you have an in somewhere, an MIS degree by itself will not usually get you a job in IT with no existing background in it with perhaps a few exceptions: If you were a successful construction project manager, and you desired to transition from construction project management to a technology project manager, then an MIS degree would be a good way to talk to tech companies about your desire to transition. And if you were well-spoken and had good references in the construction industry, you'd probably find some tech outfit willing to give you a chance to make the transition based on related non-tech project management experience plus the MIS degree. But the thing is, you could do that with an MBA and self-study of terminology, too.
The other place you may be able to transition is in database administration. Large organizations often have a hard time filling DBA roles, so if you specialized in database coursework for the MIS degree, you might find one willing to hire you at an entry level and try you out.
On the other hand, if your goal is to be a programmer, you'd be better off taking some pre-requisite courses in programming and computer science and then applying for a full MS in Computer Science program. That's a harder transition, but if you want to be the kind of programmer who makes enough money to make up for the time invested, it would be better.
At the end of the day, it's possible to transition, but it's not as simple as getting a new degree. You'll basically be competing with new undergraduates who are young and hungry. You wouldn't start out at mid-career pay, you'd start out at new undergraduate pay. And Northwestern, while good all around, isn't particularly well-known for their computer science programs. They do spin off tech companies sometimes - check out Narrative Science, for example, but I think IIT has at least as good a reputation in technology as NU does, and DePaul has a good a rep, too.
I actually considered NU's program, but two things turned me off: 1) It's damn expensive for what it is - they use it as a fundraiser because most of the students are being subsidized by their employer, and 2) at least when I was looking at it, even students who paid the bills themselves needed a signed form from their employer in order to use Career Services. That's just plain bull****.
I also wasn't considering the degree for career-changing purposes, I was consider the degree becase I felt it would be easy considering my background and it would help me qualify for a non-sponsored work visa to several countries I was looking at. In the end, I chose this program at Harvard University's Extension School, which similarly to NU's program, is run out of their Division of Continuing Education. The total tuition on it is literally half that of NU's total tuition. You can take enough courses remotely to complete the requirements, although you do have to take one course on campus in Cambridge. Depending on which track you do you could take a January course, or you could fly in once a week for 14 weeks. Even doing that, you'd save about $20,000 compared to NU's program, tuition+commuting costs. Why is Harvard's version so much cheaper? Because Harvard considers the Extension School a community outreach of sorts so they're not trying to milk the students.
I chose to live in Cambridge and work remotely at my job in Chicago for the final class, but several of my classmates in the Capstone course flew, drove or took the train in. There were classmates from Brazil, Slovakia, Russia, Mexico, Virginia, New York, India and, of course, the Boston metro area. That's out of 20 total students, so it was a nice, diverse bunch with interesting work histories from all sorts of companies from startups to global manufacturing companies to everything in between. The Extension School at Harvard is run differently from their other schools within the University, but students have access to many of the same things, including the same access to events on campus - I got to see Psy give a talk on campus this past Thursday, for free - tickets were awarded via lottery, and Extension students were on equal footing to get tickets. And access to computer labs and their libraries and many other facilities and programs. Recently they've started a "One Harvard" campaign, to try and better integrate the various schools, so it's likely to get even better in the not-to-distant future. Here's a site that talks more about it from another student.
I just got back to Chicago yesterday but will be back in Cambridge with all the other Harvard graduates watching Oprah deliver the commencement speech on May 30th.
What exactly in the IT field are you trying to break into? You certainly don't need an MS to do that. You may be able to get a little more money out of certain places, but in reality a company may be more "impressed" with an MS in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
It really depends on what you want to get into though I have a BS in Computer Science and in the actual industry, it only means so much. In reality, even at my company we don't really make that massive distinction. Sets you apart, but not by a TON. Now, if you want to break into research, then I absolutely recommend you start with that MS and try for a PhD.
I don't 100% agree with the MBA thing. I think far too many people get them without any sort of focus. If you want to break into the IT field and actually go into IT, then you do not need an MBA any time soon. An MBA will allow you to go easier into a management role (although it's really not required all the time to be in a management position).
It might sometimes keep your resume from being tossed, but it's not going to get you a job on its own.
The fact that you say "break into IT" tells us that you don't know what you want to do and you (probably) don't know enough about the various disciplines within IT to specify which one or ones of them you're interested in doing.
Saying you want to "break into IT" is like saying you want to "do something in health care." It's an absurdly broad context.
In general, unless you have an in somewhere, an MIS degree by itself will not usually get you a job in IT with no existing background in it with perhaps a few exceptions: If you were a successful construction project manager, and you desired to transition from construction project management to a technology project manager, then an MIS degree would be a good way to talk to tech companies about your desire to transition. And if you were well-spoken and had good references in the construction industry, you'd probably find some tech outfit willing to give you a chance to make the transition based on related non-tech project management experience plus the MIS degree. But the thing is, you could do that with an MBA and self-study of terminology, too.
The other place you may be able to transition is in database administration. Large organizations often have a hard time filling DBA roles, so if you specialized in database coursework for the MIS degree, you might find one willing to hire you at an entry level and try you out.
On the other hand, if your goal is to be a programmer, you'd be better off taking some pre-requisite courses in programming and computer science and then applying for a full MS in Computer Science program. That's a harder transition, but if you want to be the kind of programmer who makes enough money to make up for the time invested, it would be better.
At the end of the day, it's possible to transition, but it's not as simple as getting a new degree. You'll basically be competing with new undergraduates who are young and hungry. You wouldn't start out at mid-career pay, you'd start out at new undergraduate pay. And Northwestern, while good all around, isn't particularly well-known for their computer science programs. They do spin off tech companies sometimes - check out Narrative Science, for example, but I think IIT has at least as good a reputation in technology as NU does, and DePaul has a good a rep, too.
I actually considered NU's program, but two things turned me off: 1) It's damn expensive for what it is - they use it as a fundraiser because most of the students are being subsidized by their employer, and 2) at least when I was looking at it, even students who paid the bills themselves needed a signed form from their employer in order to use Career Services. That's just plain bull****.
I also wasn't considering the degree for career-changing purposes, I was consider the degree becase I felt it would be easy considering my background and it would help me qualify for a non-sponsored work visa to several countries I was looking at. In the end, I chose this program at Harvard University's Extension School, which similarly to NU's program, is run out of their Division of Continuing Education. The total tuition on it is literally half that of NU's total tuition. You can take enough courses remotely to complete the requirements, although you do have to take one course on campus in Cambridge. Depending on which track you do you could take a January course, or you could fly in once a week for 14 weeks. Even doing that, you'd save about $20,000 compared to NU's program, tuition+commuting costs. Why is Harvard's version so much cheaper? Because Harvard considers the Extension School a community outreach of sorts so they're not trying to milk the students.
I chose to live in Cambridge and work remotely at my job in Chicago for the final class, but several of my classmates in the Capstone course flew, drove or took the train in. There were classmates from Brazil, Slovakia, Russia, Mexico, Virginia, New York, India and, of course, the Boston metro area. That's out of 20 total students, so it was a nice, diverse bunch with interesting work histories from all sorts of companies from startups to global manufacturing companies to everything in between. The Extension School at Harvard is run differently from their other schools within the University, but students have access to many of the same things, including the same access to events on campus - I got to see Psy give a talk on campus this past Thursday, for free - tickets were awarded via lottery, and Extension students were on equal footing to get tickets. And access to computer labs and their libraries and many other facilities and programs. Recently they've started a "One Harvard" campaign, to try and better integrate the various schools, so it's likely to get even better in the not-to-distant future. Here's a site that talks more about it from another student.
I just got back to Chicago yesterday but will be back in Cambridge with all the other Harvard graduates watching Oprah deliver the commencement speech on May 30th.
Great comment, I repped it. The one above it was great too.
My background is in finance. I want to move into accounting and financial information systems. As I work my job I constantly come up with new templates and ideas for our CRM to improve things. I feel I can design better.
Im not really interested in programming. Ideally I want to get into databases, Business intelligence, big data, and security. I got into NU, but im not sure if I could get into Harvard.
What exactly in the IT field are you trying to break into? You certainly don't need an MS to do that. You may be able to get a little more money out of certain places, but in reality a company may be more "impressed" with an MS in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
It really depends on what you want to get into though I have a BS in Computer Science and in the actual industry, it only means so much. In reality, even at my company we don't really make that massive distinction. Sets you apart, but not by a TON. Now, if you want to break into research, then I absolutely recommend you start with that MS and try for a PhD.
I don't 100% agree with the MBA thing. I think far too many people get them without any sort of focus. If you want to break into the IT field and actually go into IT, then you do not need an MBA any time soon. An MBA will allow you to go easier into a management role (although it's really not required all the time to be in a management position).
Im not really interested in programming. I have a background in finance and I want to get into financial information systems and business intelligence. I am also interested in knowing the basics of security. A long term goal of mine would be to open a consulting firm or a start up.
Great comment, I repped it. The one above it was great too.
My background is in finance. I want to move into accounting and financial information systems. As I work my job I constantly come up with new templates and ideas for our CRM to improve things. I feel I can design better.
Im not really interested in programming. Ideally I want to get into databases, Business intelligence, big data, and security. I got into NU, but im not sure if I could get into Harvard.
Makes sense. I think if you want to get into truly MIS related things from where you're at, it's probably a good step towards it especially if your undergrad is in something like Finance. I have worked with some guys who went similar routes (although they would get their MS in Software Engineering or Computer Science usually). I guess I was just assuming that you had an undergrad in MIS, but it makes more sense now.
I do some things with business intelligence and big data, but they're at a deeper level than I think you want to get into. I'm assuming you want to do stuff like learn how to use software like Cognos and understand what it all means.
MS in this might be good and Northwestern certainly has a great reputation around the world so it can't hurt your cause.
P.S. Computer Science is not technically about how to program at the upper levels(I mean some of it is..but not like you might think). It's more about creating algorithms, the analysis of them, how to make them very efficient, and stuff like that. It's more like "How to make a computer do what I want" but it's not necessarily sitting there and someone going like "This is how you do this in Java." After the first few years even in undergrad, it gets very mathematical and theoretical. I know you aren't interested, but just putting it out there. The degree used to be called "Applied Math" and still is at some universities.
Makes sense. I think if you want to get into truly MIS related things from where you're at, it's probably a good step towards it especially if your undergrad is in something like Finance. I have worked with some guys who went similar routes (although they would get their MS in Software Engineering or Computer Science usually). I guess I was just assuming that you had an undergrad in MIS, but it makes more sense now.
I do some things with business intelligence and big data, but they're at a deeper level than I think you want to get into. I'm assuming you want to do stuff like learn how to use software like Cognos and understand what it all means.
MS in this might be good and Northwestern certainly has a great reputation around the world so it can't hurt your cause.
P.S. Computer Science is not technically about how to program at the upper levels(I mean some of it is..but not like you might think). It's more about creating algorithms, the analysis of them, how to make them very efficient, and stuff like that. It's more like "How to make a computer do what I want" but it's not necessarily sitting there and someone going like "This is how you do this in Java." After the first few years even in undergrad, it gets very mathematical and theoretical. I know you aren't interested, but just putting it out there. The degree used to be called "Applied Math" and still is at some universities.
Software Engineering is more closely tied to the programming itself though and far less mathematically based than Computer Science.
I was also accepted into BU and UT.
I want to learn a little programming, Java and Python. Im more interested in knowing basic programming to be able to understand it and edit existing programs to make changes and to better use software.
Im not bad at math, I did good, all As, in one calc course, 2 stat courses, and game theory, but I do bad in algebra and geometry. Crazy I know. I find higher level math easier for some reason.
No real MIS background except for a few IT classes. Would you advise CS over MIS for what I want?
I want to learn a little programming, Java and Python. Im more interested in knowing basic programming to be able to understand it and edit existing programs to make changes and to better use software.
No matter what, you're going to learn it of some kind in MIS probably. I think knowing it will absolutely make you not only understand everything better (which will go into everyday life - trust me) but it'll make you more marketable. However, you don't necessarily need a class to do this. There are definitely many resources and tutorials online which will provide you the tools to learn the stuff at a basic level for sure.
Im not bad at math, I did good, all As, in one calc course, 2 stat courses, and game theory, but I do bad in algebra and geometry. Crazy I know. I find higher level math easier for some reason.
Heh, I think it's semi normal. I suck at geometry proofs but I can do upper level calculus still pretty well...
Quote:
No real MIS background except for a few IT classes. Would you advise CS over MIS for what I want?
If you just want to do Database modeling/administration type of stuff and learn security stuff (not necessarily how to create it), and how to employ some business intelligence stuff then I *think* that MIS will be adequate. I am not sure of NU's program though and I know that MIS does a lot with database stuff at other schools. Have you seen the requirements and what you need to take?
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