Constructing a New College IT Curriculum?

slonkak asks: "For extra credit in my Management & Information Systems we were asked to redevelop the IT curriculum. Interning at a government organization for the past 5 years, I have a good idea of what I'd like to know graduating from college. Here are the two tracks I came up with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this curriculum? I would like more experience members of the Slashdot community to give their input on what they would like to see new hires have a good understanding of." Yes, this one may sound like Slashdot-Do-My-Homework, but the underlying question is still worthwhile. For you IT Managers out there, what do you expect someone with a college degree to know? For you prospective CS Students who might be reading, what would you like to learn while obtaining that degree?

Comments

Re:Tech training vs. education

[llefler]

It looks more like a catalog for an IT training company than a serious CIS curriculum. To consider it a CS curriculum, it's too sad to even laugh. Just the course title "Real World Programming".... None of the colleges/universities I have attended have had the staff to teach the course. That's why they have Internship courses. And excuse me, two Exchange classes in a Development curriculum?

Having recently returned to college to get the degree I would need to get the job I already have, I've given some thought to this topic.

First, what's with the 'washout' courses being in the 3rd year? One university I attended required Advanced Cobol as a senior level cource. Cobol, JCL, etc. And it was designed around the premise that it would be the hardest course in the curriculum. (which was basically an instructor saying, I'm going to give vague assignments and then mark off when you can't read my mind) Rather than wasting people's time, frontload the curriculum. Make the intro course tough. For instance:

Computing Concepts 5-6 hrs - number systems, functions/procedures, basic computer architecture (IE registers, etc), structured programming, BASIC, Pascal, ASM.

Two C language classes

Database concepts - introduction to SQL, simple database design, normalization

Advanced databases - advanced designs, stored procedures, triggers, management techniques

Operating systems concepts - file systems, memory management, threading

Networking technologies - sockets, RPC, DCOM, corba, etc.

Systems Design I - Requirements, documentation, analysis techiques. Design tools. (UML, DFDs, process flow, business rules)

Systems Design II - project scheduling, JAD, meet with one of the other Depts of the college to design a system to meet some business need.

Senior project - team project to develop one of the systems designed in Systems Design II.

And judging from some of the professionals I've dealt with; a reintroduction to spelling and grammar.

Of course this is a CIS development track. It doesn't pretend to address CS or systems.