Applications for IT degree?

[BowZinger]

Hey all,

I will be going off to college in September and just ordered my new MBP today (don't care about the update in June or w.e Plus I wanted it now hehe).

Anyways I will be getting a degree in IT and I will be using my MBP as my main computer. I have talked to the head of the IT department at the school a few times on the phone (they called me since I was accepted!).

Anyways they tell me that they use Windows for the IT degree (yet they say there are loads of macs on campus go figure ).

BUT! I was told that if I can find programs to use on OSX for IT classes I am more then welcome to use it. Since I do not know what programs they will be using I don't really know what to look for but I would like to check out what programs there are out there.

So if anyone has any experience in the IT industry and works with or manages macs I would like to see what you all use!

TIA!

 

[kuwisdelu]

I have no idea, but if you run into any programs that you can't find an OS X version for, you can always get a copy of Windows through the school (since you can usually get it cheaper through educational institutions than buying it elsewhere) and emulate Windows on your Mac using Fusion, or just use Bootcamp and dual-boot.

 

[Queso]

You'll have to give us a bit more info on the advertised syllabus they'll be teaching. An "IT" degree can be anything from networking to programming.

I'd also suspect that GNU/Linux will feature highly in the course, since it's so good at letting you get into the hardware and see what the computer is actually doing. It's also pretty good when it comes to standards compliance, so won't conflict with all those protocol RFCs you'll be reading like more proprietary OSs will. You can of course Boot Camp into Linux and Windows from any Mac so either isn't really an issue, but most of the software available on the Linux side also has OSX binaries available. Sometimes they are a couple of versions behind though.

 

[BowZinger]

thanks for the replies all, not really sure what kind of programs I will be needing until I get there, but I figured I would ask anyways.

Yes I could always install Windows which is what I was planning on doing. I want to use OSX as much as possible so I am going to and if I have to boot into windows for something then I will!

According to the head of the IT department they only use Windows and no other OS. Which to me seems odd but what am I going to do.

 

[Sky Blue]

Is your degree really just "IT"? Sounds a bit random. I did an MIS degree and we never used anything but Windows. I mean if you have to make an Access db, you don't really have much choice. Better get comfortable with Fusion.

 

[BowZinger]

Yes the degree is simply called Information Technology or IT.

Not sure why they went with this but I am guessing it is becuase we get to pick electives ontop of the required courses. Not really sure yet as I haven't started school. But according to the head of the department they have lots of different classes that you can pick so that you can learn the more directed section of IT that you want.

http://www.snhu.edu/2202.asp

if you go there you can scroll down a bit and see that there are some required courses and then we get to pick 3 electives.

 

[giyad]

Your going to learn Visual Basic first for programming. They are going to teach you how to draw up Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD) and Data Flow Diagrams (DFD), which you will need MS Visual Studio for. The only other thing I can think of is MS Access and learning SQL. Your not going to get into that until about your 3rd or 4th year most likely, as IT is usually in the business school and so you are going to spend the first 2 years doing prerequisites... I'd say your going to need to install Windows, which as the other guy mentioned earlier, you can get from the school. Good Luck! It was a pretty easy degree if you ask me