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Northface University - Computer Science in Half the Time?
prostoalex writes "Associated Press runs a nationwide story on Northface University. The school, founded by a pair of venture capitalists and former technology chief found a niche with its highly intensive curriculum and corporate software development specialization. For example, a BSCS degree can be completed in a little over 2 years, and it comes with IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's MCSD certification. Northface is also promoting its corporate partnerships, which allow current students to feel more secure about future employment. Grady Booch from IBM is quoted to be 'jazzed up' about the program, although there are many who oppose such approaches to college education."
Half the time
Half the money
Half the college experience.
So? Is it accredited? I got a BSCS plus math and a thorough liberal arts education in 6 semesters. I'll be impressed when they teach you something other than another fad technology. As too many people here know: a degree is not only not everything, but it's hardly anything in this field.
That's nice and all, but don't confuse it with a 4-year university, unless they're doubling up everything. A technically intensive degree doesn't produce the same kind of individual that a normal 4 year degree, with a variety of disciplines and experiences, provides.
Taken in that light, 2-year technical schools are nothing new. Any university could get you through in 2 years if you took nothing outside your major.
As if it wasn't hard enough for computer people to learn social skills. There's gonna be a new crop of CS people graduating from a total-immersion CS program with nothing to talk about except computers. Wait, that's what we do now. Hooray for nerds!
12:50 - press return.
Well it sure is an interesting idea...and I'm sure many will jump on it. But in my experience, turboing a CS course of study is bad. There's a lot to said for maturity and experience. I know I had a lot of trouble keeping up with a normal program -- it just moved so fast and skimmed so much -- but now that I have time and experience under my belt, it all seems so much easier and more clear. Sometimes taking your time is a good thing, and I think that getting a degree is one of those things that should take a while -- experience is often the most valuable asset.
Moo.
Oh my god, another Devry
...can be completed in a little over 2 years, and it comes with IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's MCSD certification.
I've said this before, and will again. A collection of certificates is not the same as a computer science degree.
Learning to program or to operate a specific set of programs if valuable, don't get me wrong there. But that is not the same thing as understanding the workings of a computer (which I consider Computer Science).
Learning a set of skills is very job-applicable, and very practical. But it should not be called computer science.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
these kids are going to come out of school with a CS degree and very little of the knowledge that a COMPUTER SCIENTIST should have.
Now Im not saying that there isnt a place for a 2 year degree that is focused on programming for corprate america. corprate america needs more programmers, especialy ones that have been custom made for the type of work that corps need, but to call them CS majors? I have a hard time beliving that they will realy learn much of the science side of CS in 2 years, while also training in 2 certifications.
Perhaps Im wrong and this cariculum will teach excelent data structure usage, and algorithim analysis and AI and compiler design and low level architecture. But at this point i kind of doubt it.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Just taking my experience of job hunting just out of college, a CS bach. degree is not that desirable to businesses.
Unless changed in the last few year's, the 'Big 6' liked anything but CS majors. EDS (I know bad example) even went so far as to prefer MUSIC majors. Their argument was that anyone can be taught to code - the 'free thinkers' in the BA degrees were where their employees resided.
Add to that the out-of-country outsourcing (where specific programming disciplines are taught), and a BSCS does not appear to be a good career path, 2 OR 4 years.
Liberal arts. That's the part of a college education that teaches people to think for themselves, and to be generalists.
Nothing wrong with that, but nobody should be under the impression that this is as good as a traditional degree with a full curriculum. Unfortunately, the students who graduate from such a program will think they are well rounded, and well educated. That's because they will lack the thinking tools needed to realize that they don't have a full education.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
...although there are many who oppose such approaches to college education.
I do not approach such an approach. I oppose such institution being called "Universities". If you're getting two certs, AND a CS degree, where's the Humanities, History, PE, and other pieces of a well-rounded, universal education?
OT: Some people do not like general education, and that's fine. Go to a two-year (like this one), or another vocational training program. Unfortunately, administrators, wanting to attract these people are "modernizing" university education, and cheapening it at the same time.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
So essentially this turns the CS degree into a trade skill like pumbing or electrician. Not that that is bad. My biggest concern about their technical skills would be if they had a sufficient math background -- IMHO no enough CS grads know or appreciate enough real math.
On another note though, even a general understanding of history, politics, and a host of other subjects one meets in a more "liberal" education is very important and often lacking amongst the general population.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
a certification teaches you how to answer questions and follow a set of instructions. a real education teaches you how to think and solve problems.
i'd rather hire one CS student that went to a 4-year, second tier school, than a thousand 2-year certified programming monkeys.
One day the truth of it hit me:
People don't go to college to learn things. They go to college to get a piece of paper that qualifies them for certain jobs.
This is a program that lets you walk out of there with 2 useful certifications and a degree under your belt. It's a "cut the crap" kind of education.
These people aren't out there to bilk you out of your money, or to brainwash you. They're there to provide a service to a niche market. And you're it.
Apparently that's their secret -- double the caffeine, halve the time needed for a CS degree. Or is a 52 ounce Mountain Dew now a standard beverage for normal college students?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How is this a Computer Science curriculum?
... the first course teaches all of "software development life cycle, OO Concepts, introductory Object Role Modeling (ORM), Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD), HTML, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Visual Studio Enterprise Architect, C#, Structured Query Language (SQL), Microsoft SQL Server, and XML basics.". That is quite the ... course.
Course Descriptions
So
Nothing new here, just another technical institute trying to sell their courses as something they aren't... I have no idea if it is a good program or not, but it isn't a CS degree.
This is going to be a degree in Computer Programming, or Computer Administration at the most.
These people are not going to be taught a wide spread of stuff like in Computer Science that goes from lots of maths and theoretical stuff through to real world stuff through to hardware and all that.
You can but hope that this course will create people that are more than unthinking code monkeys or button clickers.
I looked at the CS requirements, a whopping 12 credits of math(or maths for those of you outside the US). I had that many math credits at the end of my freshman year at Penn State, and had to take much more. The theories behind CS is math, and if they want to do anything but be a code monkey, they will need more than "Introduction to Calculus", most CS geeks took that in high school...
If you want to get through your undergrad program really quick, take the AP tests, don't go to some fly-by-night college....
Their textbooks are the "Teach Yourself XYZ in 24 hours" series?
Personally i'm sick of university, i was sick of it after the first year and I wish it was over.
Maybe the reason why many employers are requiring 4 year degress in the IT field is to see if you have what it takes to work through the boring stuff. If you are sick of school after only one year, how would you last 30+ years in the work force?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
The Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (B.S.C.S.) program is a ten-quarter, 28 month program. The academic year at Northface University is 47 weeks, and there are 10 weeks in a quarter.
Students attend classes and work on projects from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., with one hour for lunch, five days a week. Most assignments are performed in groups as part of lab and project work.
This seems possible. In fact, it seems exactly like what most universities offer - less the out-of-faculty electives.
At my university, a full degree takes 8 semesters, or approximately 4300 hours of coursework (estimating 3 hours in class, and 6 hours out, per week). This can be done in as little as 32 months if one really tries hard. (read: doesn't fail anything, and takes 5 courses a semester with not summers off)
This place is advertising 3980 course hours, a 9-5 school environment, and 47 weeks of class a year.
Really, you are getting the same ammount of education. In fact, you are likely getting more (the 3980 number does not take into account homework time, my 4300 hour estimate does). What you are losing out on is diversity. Which many students don't want.
True, diversity is a valuable asset, and a valuable experience. I enjoyed taking english and writing classes, and found them very useful as well. But if you really want diversity, go to this school, get your first degree in just over two years, and then enroll in a second degree program somewhere else.
I doubt many companies care if you can create a turing machine on paper using predicate calculus either. But it's still an important part of computer science.
The difference between a trade school and a university is that the university aims to not only equip you with the knowledge to perform in a job, but to make you a better all around person as well through exposure to other studies, people and ideas.
In no other situation in life will you ever get a chance to experience such a fascinating breadth of humanity in such a period of time. Its a sad shame some people see this as a BAD thing.
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Some of the best coders I've ever encountered were under 20. It doesn't really take that long for someone with the right sort of intelligence to develop the skills. So the idea of a two-year crash course isn't unreasonable.
The real problem is, that sort of intelligence isn't all that rare. Which is why a coding career isn't as lucrative as it once was, I guess. These crash courses beguile their audiences into thinking they can be fabulously wealthy just as coders. You need a great deal more to convert computing skill into something other than a moderately paid high stress job.
Know computing, but also know something else, is my advice for most people. What else? Something that you can apply the computing to, basically. There's a lot of choices. Pick one.
mt
That's not college. It's a trade school. A vocational program. That's very useful, maybe more useful than college in starting to work a job. But its value plays out fast, even the most of the training itself becoming obsolete within a few years. Learning to become an independent adult in college lasts a lifetime, and makes for a better career. Especially when your career, or industry, changes. That's why spreading this education over twice as long (or more ;) in college, along with a variety of other courses and students, is so much more valuable. But the trade school is better than no higher education than just high school, and probably a more realistic path for thousands of people each year than expensive, and largely mediocre, colleges. And as a post-liberal-arts degree, it sounds like the best balance.
--
make install -not war
Since I graduated in 1995, tuition at the University of Iowa has tripled. It has done so because the school has locked itself into a number of expensive construction projects and is not able to reduce its cash flow needs to match the decreasing state revenue.
From what I can tell, the quality of instruction has not tripled since my graduation. Even moreso, students that I have advised to pursue Oracle DBA certification as technical electives have been repeatedly refused, even though the university listed Oracle certification as for-credit courses.
The CS departments of most universities have been bought off by Microsoft to the extent that they already spend over a year teaching Visual Basic. They do not use open tools, and their administrative structure reflects this close-minded and obsolete path.
IMHO, State Universities are run in a cartel system that has seen its fair share of waste and corruption. Any ideas for a system that could effectively compete with the public university cartel would be welcome indeed.
E. Dijkstra: Computer Science is no more about
.net certification is not a computer science course. It is probably not even a software engineering course.
computers than astronomy is about telescopes
Anything that brags about java and
It is probably a programming course.
And yes, there are scattered cases of people who eschewed college and did very well. I'd wager there are even more people who didn't attend college and wound up in fast food. A degree gets your foot in the door.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I think they're a big part of a real CS degree. I mean, wtf? You just go and get certified for Windows 200X, or Version Y of some major software? That's a recipe for obsolesence. Might as well just STUDY Latin, because in ten years, more people will be using Latin than anything you'll be certified in today.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.