OT: Value of EMU degree in Michigan
I am considering applying to EMU to pursue a second bachelors degree in Computer Science and I would appreciate feedback from the MGoCommunity on their perceptions of the advisability of said plan.
First off, before anyone suggests it, I am not considering applying to UM because I am 38 years old and an Ohio resident so I probably would not be accepted for a post-bac degree and even if I were accepted I couldn't afford to pay $35 K/year for out-of-state tution.
Does anyone have personal knowledge (either as an EMU grad themselves or knowing an EMU grad) of the employment prospects for EMU grads in SE Michigan? I know that EMU is NOT a nationally respected school, but does a degree from EMU have enough "juice" locally for it to be a decent investment?
In addition, can anyone provide insight into the housing situation in Ypsi vis-a-vis good neighborhoods vs. dear-God-please-don't-let-me-get-hit-over-the-head-with-a-sock-full-of-quarters neighborhoods?
With a CS bachelors for an entry level programming job. One point on the anecdotal data chart.
I'm an Eagle and I can say that the degree is just as good as any other large university degree, it just depends on the department. I do have one question for you though, why go back for another Bachelor's degree and not go for a graduate degree?
My first degree is in business, Economics/Finance to be precise. I went to a tiny (2500 students) private liberal arts college in my first go around. I have no desire to pursue an MBA or any other business related graduate degree.
I started studying computer programming at my local community college, but decided that I did not want to be limited by only having an associates degree. I hope to be able to work in a non-business environment upon completion of my CS degree.
That's a common scenario. Well, good to hear you're still pursuing what you want. EMU is a good option, and it's a great "commuter school." I went there as a full-time night student while working 40 hours a week at my regular job. From what I found (at least in the poli sci dept.), the faculty can be really flexible and helpfull. Good luck to you.
I have a good deal of experience with EMU (worked there, my mom went there, my neighbor went there) and for certain programs, it is a solid degree. For example, it has a well-regarded teaching degree program. Also, its College of Technology (which is the College your CS degree would be under) is also well-regarded locally, particularly in specialties like Design annd Apparel/Textiles. My neighbor has a CS degree from EMU and has had no problem getting/keeping work (granted, that's an 'n' of 1).
What I would do is find who teaches the classes your are interested in and start Googling/asking around. With CS, at least some of these folks should be local tech leaders (e.g., they run their own shop), which shows you they know what they are talking about and, more importantly, have a link to the "real world." The full-time professors also should be active in generating research.
As far as teaching programs go, I have heard just about everybody from every school (GVSU, EMU, NMU, and MSU for example) say that their teaching program is "..like one of the best in the nation". Is that just people trying to make their decision to go to a relatively cheaper school (or a school with a relatively easier admission process) seem instead like a shrewd strategic move, or is their something to this. When I went to GVSU for my Masters degree, I freely admitted that I would have rather have gone to UM, but I did not have a lot of the pre-reqs that they were looking for. That is not to necessarily trash GVSU. I just felt that the UM degree would have opened more doors for me. However, a lot of the students who were there with me made it sound as though GVSU was actually a superior school to UM (professors were also wont to feed this impression), and that we were learning more there. I feel that what is learned is really up to the student, however, I felt that were I at UM I would not have waltzed out of there with almost a 4.0 GPA, nor would what was in all likelihood one-third to one-half of my class have done the same.
He is actually giving honest advice (as opposed to most people, who try to justfy their own decisions).
If you do have your mind set on going to a small school (nothing wrong with that in my opinion). FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, stay the HELL AWAY from EMU. Close friend of mine did a CS degree (MS) from there (crappy teachers, unmotivated peer group, bad location and piss poor career management help).
Find a small school in a better market (CA, MA,NY, IL, TX even CO). The schools may not necessarily be that much better than MI (if at all), but your chance of getting hired in the CS field is much higher. I am in the field and do occasionally make hires, so take my $0.01 FWIW. Visit whatever school you are even considering first, don't feel shy about stopping students as they are walking out of the building and requesting them to tell you a little bit about their experience there. you would be surprised, how many people are willing to steer you in the right direction.
Oh and a CS degree with Finance background is GOLD in Boston, NY and Chicago.
No offense, but I think your comments about poor professors and bad location are WAY off base. In my time at Eastern (both bachelors and masters) I found the professors to be, on average, great. First of all, you actually get tenured faculty in the majority of classes...as opposed to endless G.A.'s and T.A.'s. Also, they are very accessible after hours and genuinely care about the students in their classes.
As for location, you must be feeding into the uninformed hype about Ypsi being a ghetto. That opinion is far from accurate. First of all, check actual crime statistics for Eastern and other public universities...even our beloved UofM. You'll find that Eastern is middle-of-the-pack in regards to campus crime rankings within the state. Also, drive around the surrounding area, and then drive around areas surrounding Wayne State, MSU, Western, etc...I assure you it's VERY similar.
Your friend may very well have not enjoyed his experiences, but the reasons given don't paint an accurate picture of EMU.
I am pretty familiar with the areas surrounding MSU (I live, and grew up in Okemos,) and EMU (Dad lived in Ypsi/Belleville for years,) and I would have to say the area around MSU is much nicer than the greater Ypsilanti area IMHE.
I would not compare Ypsi to East Lansing area, and maybe only Kalamazoo on a bad day. Ypsi is Ann Arbor's downriver, not that nice but not a complete pit. You can live nearby in East Ann Arbor or the West side of Ypsi. I had friends that lived in Ypsi and went to U of M because it was less expensive. It's okay and not far from lot's of stuff (Detroit and Ann Arbor).
I'm in the software business (sales/marketing) and usually your college does not matter that much after the first job. The one nice thing about CC's is they actually teach hands-on practical stuff with commercial software (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft). Some of the larger Universities teach compiler theory and other cool stuff that never actually matters unless you are planning a deep technical career.
It depends upon what you want to do - developer/architect/administrator etc as to where you want to go. If you are going to be a developer or software architect I'm not sure you would need another 4 year degree.
I have no knowledge of the Master's program, but that's not what the OP asked. He's getting his Bachelor's. The difference between Bachelor's and Master's (even within the same program) can be quite different at big research schools (e.g., U of M) vs. smaller, "teaching" schools (e.g., EMU, WMU). Big research schools are infamous for sloughing things off on their TAs/GSIs, as the only classes the big-time, name professors really have time for are at the Master's level or above. I really enjoyed my time at U of M, but for some of my lower level classes, sitting in a lecture hall with 500 of my closest friends listening to some prof who would rather be doing research was not a highlight.
Plus, going out of state costs a TON of money. UC San Diego (to pick one school) is $22k out-of-state tuition vs. $8k at EMU. NY and MA are even worse.
The value of a school depends on the department. As for a teaching school, EMU is one of the top in the nation (and that's not just an alumn touting their school). They are the original "Teacher College" and still have quite a lot of national respect.
For teaching, these people have some substance to their arguments. I can't find any ratings for undergrad, but UM and MSU both are in the top 10 of almost every category in graduate programs in education. EMU started out as Michigan's premier teaching college, as that was the only major they offered, so I've gotta believe that it is still pretty damn good. Regardless of where a teacher goes in this state, the laws dictating what is required to be allowed in the classroom are much more stringent than in most other states, so our certification has some clout. UM and MSU are far and away the best, but EMU is a really good teaching school, and actually has a couple joint programs with GVSU for people on the west side.
I'm also in the second bachelors program at EMU, getting a degree in Accounting before going into the Masters program. I had to go into the second bachelor program because my original GPA (from UM-D) from 12 years ago wasn't good enough to get right into the Masters program.
All of the major accounting firms and many large corporations recruit at EMU. I think that a business degree from EMU is quite respected.
To your other question: generally speaking, I would not live in the apartments on or north of Huron River Drive (e.g., off of Leforge Road). That area is a bit sketchy at night.
Generally, I would try and rent SE of the school, in the area roughly bounded by the school on the NW, Depot Town on the east, and the b-school on the south.
Here the EMU Campus Police blotter so you can see where the bad doings have been:
If you want to code, then I would assume you can do well with any CS degree from any major University - EMU included - especially with your degree in finance/econ.
Since Computer Science is such a broad field and most people in it don't want to code the rest of their lives, this is a tough question to answer.
I would suggest programs that don't get too specific are a route you want to take. Take your Data Structures and Algorithms, Computer Organization, Operating Systems, Networking Systems, Discrete Structures, Database classes.
Don't take classes that focus on programming in a specific language beyond the minimum. The idea is you learn how to write code and the concepts behind it - not the specific semantics of any one language. If you know the concepts, you pick up different languages easily. Don't take "sexy" sounding classes unless you plan on grad school - such as artificial intelligence, graphics, computer gaming, etc. Take the practical stuff.
2 cents from a UM Comp Sci major.
To tag on with what Tom was saying about languages and from a guy who did web programming, make sure to learn more than one language. C++ and Java are the current standards and if you know the basics of them you'll be able to cross back and forth easily enough. (I'd personally recommend C++ as its the harder one to pick up with pointers) Combined with your business degree, COBOL would be a fair second language to learn the basics of because of its use before C++ and Java became popular.
What if it's a perl shop that's looking to hire, or php, or whatever? How would you relate the languages you do have a lot of experience with to a different language? That would be the thing I'd focus on, more than randomly chosing an additional language.
We have a mixture of objective questions (talk about X and Y and why you would prefer one over the other in this situation, if someone reports a problem with Z what is the first thing you do) and subjective working style questions and mostly we look for people who know their stuff and aren't completely hard to talk to/get along with (hermits, insufferable know-it-alls, etc.) We've hired folks with degrees from all over, EVEN OHIO!
Also, a little sysadmin experience always looks good. Do they have on-campus internships available for those sorts of things?
Yeah I'm finishing my BS in Computer Science at EMU so I can't really say how easy it is to get a job after school, but I like the school. I can answer any questions that you would have.
As a two-time Eastern Alum, I would say that an EMU degree has just as much weight regionally as any public university in the state not named UofM or MSU (depending on the program).
As for your plans to study CS, just know that it actually isn't located within the C.O.T., but in the College of Arts and Sciences. The College of Technology does have a couple of great niche programs that might be similar to what you're looking for with CS. Look into Sim., Animation, and Gaming, as well as Information Assurance.
Beyond coding languages, I would suggest taking at least one class on programming for mobile devices/limited hardware (if possible). While mobile devices are certainly more powerful and have greater capacity for storage than they were even a couple of years ago, most are still not nearly as robust as the servers and *Nix boxes most programming classes use as platforms. I know from personal experience that switching from a desktop to a crappy Windows CE device is jarring at first, and having some experience designing with limited resources is invaluable.
As for EMU, my wife completed here MS there in Biology, and we lived near campus (on Perrin St.) for over a year. While Ypsi isn't great, it also isn't the second coming of Calcutta. There are apartments along the river and all about the campus that are decent-to-good, and rent for a nice 1BD can as little as $600. Downtown Ypsi has a couple of nice watering holes, and you can always drive to A2 if you need more variety.
Both her and another EMU grad are working on their Ph.Ds. right now at pretty good schools, and they did not receive any brush-back for EMU's lack of name recognition. While it might help to have a big name on your resume if you plan on traveling outside of the region, it has been my experience that programming jobs care less about where you learned and more about what you learned. Having a background in finance plus any programming skills will make you quite desirable. Best of luck.
EMU is actually a shit teaching school. Students entering the program out of high school typically have the lowest GPAs of admitted students, and tend to graduate with the highest GPAs. Its a teaching factory, which doesn't mean its a good school. MSU is the best teaching school in the state, followed by UM.
Ask the state of Michigan about best teacher prep schools, then tell us again that EMU is garbage and that MSU and UofM are better. MSU and Eastern have actually been given the highest designation from the state in regards to their Teacher Prep programs.
Don't spew your opinion as fact.
Source? When did you talk to the state of Michigan?
I haven't ever seen rankings with EMU on them. They do churn out a lot of teachers though.
It is a fact. I know plenty of educational professionals that matter in Michigan, they all say the same thing. If you think EMU is better than UM or MSU in ANYTHING, you are an idiot. EMU is a necessary teaching factory, nothing more. My brother was in the teaching program at EMU and then transfered to the one at UM. There is no comparison.
Where the hell are you getting your info?
I have been teaching CS/MIS for a couple of years at a Big-Ten school system and following are my observations. All of this may not apply to you - so pick what you feel fits you.
1. You need to be clear whether you want to be in hard-core technology (coding, system maintenance, network management etc) or you want to be in more of a business-technology area. If it is the second - then you should look at a MIS program in a business school rather than a CS program in the Engineering school. I feel your business undergrad would help you if you choose MIS. Also - there are many MIS MS programs that would perhaps be a better fit for you to add a technology layer to your business/finance undergrad.
2. There is a growing trend of low level CS jobs being offshored while MIS jobs are still holding better. You need to pick an area that is at least somewhat resistant to being offshored (e.g basic coding can be offshored without much trouble, user requirement assessment - less likely).
3. Location is a big issue - there are just too many CS/MIS grads chasing very few jobs in the Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison region that my students are considering. In contrast, many faculty in growing areas (Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon...) or technology industry rich states (California, Washington) tell me that the competition for jobs is less fierce there.
Best of luck to you - it is commendable that you are following your passion and taking steps to bolster your adademic credentials.
I work at a computer programming company and I can tell you that the school won't make much of a difference. If you know your stuff, you'll get hired regardless of school or even if you have a degree or not. Unfortunately (fortunately?), the interviewers have become very good at asking questions that are linked with experience, in particular, language-specific questions.
I know this is kind of hard to do without any knowledge of the area, but you might want to consider picking an area of focus so that when you come out of school you have a depth of knowledge instead of a breadth of knowledge. While you will want to know a variety of languages, when you apply to a company, they only care that you know 2-3 particular ones and how well you know them. For example, working in web design, you would want to know PHP/ASP.Net/Ruby (Pick one), Javascript, HTML, and possibly a little SQL. No web development company will care how much C++ you know. However, a company hiring a C++ devleoper most likely doesn't care about any of those web development languages. DBAs on the other hand, will want to learn a lot about SQL and a specific database company (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc), and another language of choice on the side.
In summary, where you get your degree won't make a difference for most companies. Someone who understands the languages and concepts required for the company can come from any school. Just make sure that you are the best interviewee that understands those languages and concepts going into the interview process.
I'm going to be a senior in high school and am thinking of applying to EMU (Secondary Education Major) and then transferring to UM after ~2 years. I've heard that it's hard to transfer from EMU to UM due to some mismatching credits. Anyone have more info on this?
It depends on the classes and the programs you're enrolled in. If you're thinking School of Education, you have to contact the department for transfer credit equivalencies. LSA has a nice website with most of the previously established transferable courses listsed, but I think for the SoE you have to contact them directly. One suggestion as to getting into UM in general is to apply as a transfer to LSA and then switch to Education. It's not an automatic switch, but at least it's a backdoor way to get into the school.
Why are you thinking of transferring? If you think that a UofM teaching degree will land you more exposure, you may want to do some more investigating. There are actually more educators nationwide with an Eastern degree than any other (EMU owns over 1% of that entire population), and Eastern actually holds the largest teacher job fair in the state (and largest in the midwest) each year for its grads. I've volunteered at a couple of these job fairs, and can tell you that students from other universities skip their fairs and come to Eastern's because of the exposure.
Eastern does have an excellent job fair, but keep in mind in general Teaching is a brutal field at the moment. Due to budget cuts and other assorted issues new teachers are not getting hired much. The typical job interview these days consists of the new teacher facing other candidate teachers who have 3-7 years experience who recently got laid off, its ugly. Still if you have a math or science certification that will help, and it appears to me that special education teachers are always needed as well.
Aug
Even Ann Arbor passed out pink slips to teachers last year.
Your points aren't really helping, as you actually say nothing about preparation.
1. Teacher quantity =/= teacher quality.
2. Anyone can go to this job fair.
There are actually more educators nationwide with an Eastern degree than any other (EMU owns over 1% of that entire population)
Quantity != Quality.
Eastern actually holds the largest teacher job fair in the state (and largest in the midwest) each year for its grads. I've volunteered at a couple of these job fairs, and can tell you that students from other universities skip their fairs and come to Eastern's because of the exposure.
Has no bearing on the subject. Anyone can register for the fair. In fact, the EMU fair is SO big that it's hard to get face to face time with districts. There is more opportunity to talk to people (instead of standing in lines all day) at the UM fair simply b/c it's smaller. Which fair you go to depends on whice districts are registered to have a booth.
If you're headed out of state to work, you'll be in demand. If you're staying in MI, well...... you better like teaching Math, Integrated Science, or Special Ed. Otherwise you'll have a REALLY hard time getting a job.
Why not try UM-Flint, or UM-Dearborn, I imagine the transfer process from those two would be much easier...
Aug
Speaking as someone who has worked in admissions, it's actually no different. Those schools are considered completely different universities from UM-Ann Arbor. The transfer equivalencies are a little bit better aligned, but as for getting a "leg-up" there is no advantage.