During my job search, many of the job requirements and responsibilities listed scare me. I felt my education in New York City College of Technology, or Citytech for short, isn’t preparing me enough.  To me, my college courses are only teaching us the basic of our materials. I could be wrong because I haven’t worked in my field. However, I’ve done research on the requirements needed for information technology related work. It seem to me, people tend to use programs and have skills more advance than what I am being taught. I do understand it is not the college’s fault because sometimes the professor decided to teach the material they want.
My first computer security class was more of a terminology course. The professor was trying to get us to familiarize the type of viruses, and their origin. Which is normal for the basic of our lecture. However, throughout the semester, I felt I didn’t learn much. We spend most of our time talking about work ethic. Toward the end of the semester, we have to do our own research project and present it to the class. Luckily, that was only applies for my computer security course. My other module course was practical, which I prefer. We set routers, firewalls, and security protocols. I learn from hands on.
The courses provided by Citytech qualify us for most of the job listing, but not enough to make us effective in the working environment. The lectures only scratches the surface of the material, and the rest and advance technique needs to be self-taught. For example, the ad (Example Job Application) wants the candidate to be fluent in the Linux/Unix operating system. The college does provide a course for Linux/Unix. However, there’s a limit on how much one semester can teach us. So, we will have to download and use the operating system in our time to use in order to be fluent with that operating system. For the job requirements, there wasn’t much expectation listed on communication skill, but I assume companies want someone to be fluent in english and go straight to the point.
I do believe college courses should prepare students for future career. Education’s purpose is to prepare students for their step toward society, and put their skills into use for their job. The courses required in Citytech for graduation are very flexible. Such as, a student is required to take biology, when the student is pursuing the computer security. The flexibility of that design is, if the student wants to change from security field to either science major, or medical technology. The student doesn’t have to retake those course. But it waste time for those that are trying to go straight for their field. I believe there should be options for students to not take a certain class.
Searching through other CUNY colleges. Their offered courses for information system are similar. Yet, it has a specific set of skills that are broken down, such as cryptography for computer security. I believe those are very important lectures that are not provided in Citytech. For City College, I looked up their computer science program because for the “Information System” it is an MIS degree. That major requires more math course than Citytech. For Baruch College, the business focused college. It is expected that their computer program are mainly focused in business, like focusing on spreadsheet, and formulas. Therefore, I feel Citytech’s courses are generalize, while other colleges are focused toward that one major.
