Here are some tips for selecting schools, based on an analysis comparing each school to all others across dozens of factors:
Schools Concentrating On Network And Systems Administrators
- Focus: For schools with a focus on this career area, look at Bentley, Northeastern, Holyoke Community College, and Quinsigamond Community College.
Fastest Response From Schools
- Request Info: For the fastest information for prospective students, look at the Spotlight schools on this page.
Student Body
- Part-Time: For schools emphasizing part-time studies, consider Bay Path, UMass Boston, Bridgewater State, and Eastern Nazarene College.
- Female: For schools particularly welcoming to female students, consider Bay Path and Simmons College.
- Diverse: For a diverse student body, consider Mount Wachusett Community College, Bunker Hill, BU, and UMass Boston.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider Greenfield Community College, Northern Essex Community College, Cape Cod Community College, and Mount Wachusett Community College.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of BU, BC, Northeastern, and Clark.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of Lasell, Bentley, Dean, and Nichols College.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at BC, Northeastern, BU, and Bentley.
- % Accepted: For selective institutions, look at BC, Dean, Northeastern, and Bentley.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at WPI, BC, Clark, and Suffolk University.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Worcester Polytechnic Institute • Worcester, MA
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2008)
• 6/25/2011
"All in all, I would say I am quite satisfied. I learned what I wanted to (even if I ended up self teaching myself a lot of it). I got the piece of paper saying I had learned what I did. And most importantly, I got a job in a field I enjoy, and am doing fairly well for myself."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | Freshmen year I would have definitely recommended it, however by senior year I was not liking what I was seeing with the new leadership of the school. I have not checked back to see how it is, but I know my senior year there was talk of removing the IQP and MQP requirements/projects which would immediately make me remove any recommendations for this school. If the IQP and MQP still exist, then I would have to double check where the president has taken the labs, and if he has rolled any earnings from his commercial lab venture back into the student facilities of the school. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | I know WPI has a fairly decent reputation with CS, which is why I choose to go there in the first place. They are no MIT or Carnegie Mellon, however they give you practical experience via their MQP and other programs. |
| Program Quality | 7 | WPI offered IQP and MQP (basically junior/senior thesis which are joint efforts with external companies). These real world experiences were a great jumping off point for my career, since it got my foot in the door with different companies within my field of study. |
| Instruction | 3 | The instruction in the actual classes was rather poor. I actually spent most of my college career skipping the classes and self teaching myself the material instead. |
| How Difficult | 4 | I do not want to count this against WPI, but I did find all of the classwork to be fairly trivial. That being said, I know a lot of my classmates did not find this to be the case. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | WPI actually schedules Wednesdays of each week for laboratory work, meaning that for a good number of classes (EE, ECE, and some CS), 3-5 hours on each Wednesday was dedicated to hands on projects and learning for that particular class. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 4 | Honestly, this was a downside to WPI. Their class structure is set up in such a way that some classes that are required for graduation are only offered once every 2 or 4 years, meaning that you have to work your entire schedule around these classes. This can be a serious pain, especially when it's a 30 person class offered every other year, and 60 people want to get in. |
| Academic Facilities | 3 | This actually went down hill while I was attending. When I started their labs and facilities were not exceptional, but they were not bad at all. As time went on, though, I watched the new president at the time fire half of the CS faculty and tear down two labs, replacing them with a new admissions building, and a commercial research lab off campus which no students would ever be allowed to use. |
| Social Life | 1 | School spirit was pretty much nonexistent. I know there were plenty of parties at the fraternities and on campus... however, that was never my scene, so I never went to them. |
| Placement Services | 10 | This is the where WPI really shone through, mainly with their business sponsored MQPs, as I have mentioned before. These offerings, combined with the career center and the wealth of support they give graduates, is rather impressive. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I am familiar with the fact that WPI does have alumni services... However, I have never used them myself. The last service I ever used from them was the career center to get my current job, and I never looked back. |
UMass Dartmouth • North Dartmouth, MA
Studying Computer Science (completion in 1990)
• 7/4/2011
"Fundamentals were taught for a good starting base. The school lacked a hands on approach."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | In the IT field, I believe you need a more hands on approach. There is more that can be learned by actually dealing with a network and its problems than what can be learned in a book. |
| Program Reputation | 5 | The program is a good start to get a background, but there is no hands on work. A Lot of what I use is on the job is from day to day learning. |
| Program Quality | 8 | The CS major gave a good overview of everything in the field but never focused on any one aspect. I wish I had a more specialized training. |
| Instruction | 8 | I learned a lot in the university setting - the instructors were knowledgeable. There was a lot of overview but not a lot of practical instruction. |
| How Difficult | 7 | The work was challenging but looking back, a lot of it I never use. There was too much theory and not enough hands on work. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Not enough hands on learning. I found this was not the best approach to this major of studies. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 5 | Classes were only offered at specific times. If you could not fit in the class, you had to wait an entire year in some cases. |
| Academic Facilities | 6 | There were plenty of computers available at the time. There were not a lot of test environments to simulate a larger network. |
| Social Life | 5 | There were a lot of sports groups and clubs available to the students. Social events were average. |
| Placement Services | 1 | There were no job placement services at my school. It took me over a year to find an entry level position after I graduated. |
| Alumni Network | 1 | I have never gotten any support after graduation. The alumni only looks for money. |
Wentworth Institute Of Technology • Boston, MA
Studying Network Information Systems (completion in 2008)
• 10/29/2011
"The job I have now I could have obtained by working my way up and earning it through work experience. I spent years racking up student loan debt that I could have spent working."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | I would have put “no” for this answer, but I figured if I ever met someone that I really hated I would recommend Wentworth to them. |
| Program Reputation | 5 | Some people have heard it is good. Most people have never heard of the school. |
| Program Quality | 1 | School really doesn't prepare you for a real world working environment. I learned much more from on the job training in my first 3 months than I did in 4 years of college. |
| Instruction | 3 | Most of the classes were useless and poorly instructed. The majority of the instructors spoke poor English as a second language. |
| How Difficult | 5 | The classes were filled with a lot of busy work. Not much that really required critical thinking, just a lot to keep you busy. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Each class had two hours of lecture and two hours of "lab" a week. It was good for some courses, but not a single English professor knew exactly what the point of an English lab was for. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 5 | There were summer and evening courses, which made it somewhat flexible. The day classes would meet at different times every day which made it very hard to register for classes without large time gaps between classes. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | They did have some decent labs. Most of them were filled with old equipment MIT had no use for anymore. |
| Social Life | 1 | I think the only parties or social events at Wentworth took place in the World of Warcraft. Friday night raids were a big deal. |
| Placement Services | 4 | The school did a good job of finding students jobs. The problem was that they did a good job of finding jobs that really didn't have much to do with your degree. They were able to find jobs fixing printers for 10 hours a week at $10 an hour, but unfortunately that didn't provide me with enough money to pay the loans I needed to take out for a degree from there. |
| Alumni Network | 1 | All I really get is things in the mail asking to donate money. I am still paying off student loans on their worthless degree. If I were to ever win the lottery I would buy the school to tear it down out of spite before I would ever donate a single penny. |
Clark University • Braintree, MA
Studying Information Technology / Network Design And Security (completion in 2009)
• 12/13/2011
"The school was decent. If I were to do it over again I would want to find a university with a Bachelor's degree program instead of a certificate."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | It depends, I am not sure since they changed names how effective they are with IT classes. I have heard some students are not very satisfied with the content and teachers at the current school. |
| Program Reputation | 5 | The school has changed their name a few times since I went there. This is a bit concerning since they had a good reputation under the Clark University name. |
| Program Quality | 5 | The school is what you make it. To move up and really understand networking technology you have to be dedicated and study on your own and not just rely on the time spent in the classroom. |
| Instruction | 6 | Instructors were knowledgeable. However, some were not working in the field, all they did was teach and have not worked in the field for years. |
| How Difficult | 4 | No tests or quizzes taken in class affected our grades. This was a disappointment since comprehension of the material is critical for obtaining a job within the industry. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The school was much more hands-on than book learning. However, I studied the materials on my own so I could understand the content better than just working with hand-on labs. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 3 | There was no flexibility at all within the school. We had night classes two nights a week and a Saturday class every other week. |
| Academic Facilities | 6 | The academic resources the school provided were adequate. We did not have a library but we did have multiple computer labs we could work in. |
| Social Life | 9 | The social experience at the school was good, I was friendly with the majority of my classmates. Towards the end every other night we would all go out for drinks after class was over. |
| Placement Services | 5 | The school's job placement services were OK, I worked with a young woman who helped me out in writing my resume. However, I did not get a job in the industry until I revised my resume with an instructor's assistance. |
| Alumni Network | 1 | There is no alumni network that I am aware of from the school I went to. It was a certificate program over the course of two years. |
Brandeis University • Waltham, MA
Studying Program & Project Management (completion in 2010)
• 1/15/2012
"The school was great, the instructors were professional. The classes were demanding enough and the program gave me an amazing perspective on program and project management. Overall, the program and the school were outstanding."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Yes, I have recommended it to other people at my place of work. I know of two others who have started taking courses in this program. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | Brandeis is always ranked very high in US News. Also, when asked about where I achieved my Master's people immediately recognize the Brandeis name. |
| Program Quality | 10 | The school is amazing. It has amazing resources and has hired professors with tons of experience. Also, Brandeis is in the middle of an area where there are tons of resources. The library and the resources available made it a great experience. |
| Instruction | 10 | All instructors were well educated. All instructors were professional and had amazing professional experience. |
| How Difficult | 8 | The program was 10 courses and demanding. It was demanding in that it averaged about 40 hours of work a week, and instructors expected first-rate assignments. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The program was very hands on. While we there was quite a bit of reading and lots of writing, it was expected that students share first hand experiences in classes. Also, the classes were geared to real world experience. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | The school is very flexible. I attended 60% of my courses online. Also, instructors were always available to review and provide advice. |
| Academic Facilities | 10 | The facilities were new and up to date and kept clean. |
| Social Life | 5 | I did not attend any events. I was a commuter. |
| Placement Services | 4 | I was not offered any sort of placement as part of the program. So, overall I do not think the placement program was very good. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I have had very little involvement with the alumni network. The network reaches out via mail, but that is about it. |
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