Columbia College

[tsimmns]

Has anyone attended here? I am interested in their MIS degree. I know they are probably about the same as the others, but I do like the face they have deferred payment for military personnel. They are also RA, so they can't be that bad I assume correct? Also, they are also ranked higher than TESC in the list of military schools. Also, does anyone know the real difference between MIS and CIS? I basically just want this degree to be able to apply for IT jobs in the Guard, hopefully getting the Bachelors and then the Masters from somewhere online like Arizona's online option. University of Memphis also has the MIS, but their per credit cost is double that of Columbia College. I guess I would be better off going the MIS route seeing as how it's a business related degree and I have a ton of business credits and that would be the fastest way towards me getting one of these degrees. While I considered the OSU CS post-bachelorette degree, I have decided CS is not what I need as it's more for the engineering people so I have decided to go the MIS or possibly the CIS route.

[ladylearner]

Has anyone attended here? I am interested in their MIS degree. I know they are probably about the same as the others, but I do like the face they have deferred payment for military personnel. They are also RA, so they can't be that bad I assume correct? Also, they are also ranked higher than TESC in the list of military schools. Also, does anyone know the real difference between MIS and CIS? I basically just want this degree to be able to apply for IT jobs in the Guard, hopefully getting the Bachelors and then the Masters from somewhere online like Arizona's online option. University of Memphis also has the MIS, but their per credit cost is double that of Columbia College. I guess I would be better off going the MIS route seeing as how it's a business related degree and I have a ton of business credits and that would be the fastest way towards me getting one of these degrees. While I considered the OSU CS post-bachelorette degree, I have decided CS is not what I need as it's more for the engineering people so I have decided to go the MIS or possibly the CIS route.

Can you provide us a link to the Columbia College to which you're referring? It will help us give you the best feedback.

[tsimmns]

Can you provide us a link to the Columbia College to which you're referring? It will help us give you the best feedback.

Columbia College: On Campus & Online - Associate, Bachelor's and Master's Degrees

[Prloko]

If Columbia College works for your both academically and financially, then go for it. I'm not sure what ranking you are referencing to, but I would not base my decision on it. CC and TESC are tier 3 schools.

[tsimmns]

Prloko, can you define what tier 3 schools mean?

[Prloko]

Tier 1 schools are the top schools, tier two are usually unranked schools.

Sometimes 3 tiers are used to separate the Ivy and Public Ivies. Columbia College is an old respected school in MO, but it is unranked and lumped in with all the other "bottom" schools. These rankings have flawed methodologies and are usually easily manipulated by schools that care to manipulate them.

Further, I suspect the ranking you are referring to is probably something from military.com or other company that has some sort of financial stake of where they rank these schools and also it is also subjective and flawed and usually has nothing to do with academics, but rather their "friendliness" to military personnel.

Again, Columbia College is a good school, you're not going to go wrong with it. It even has a campus presence which is important to some people, but honestly, it isn't going to give you any name recognition, especially for national guard jobs. The Guard will accept NA degrees equally. If anything, TESC has a much larger military presence and recognition, as does Excelsior.

Pick the school that satisfies your needs; whether that be academics, recognition, military friendliness, tuition deferral for GI Bill, credit transfer, time to completion, pride, etc.

[tsimmns]

Prloko I think I have asked before, but since you have a Federal Job I might need to ask again. Do you feel that have a degree from a RA school has helped. Do you think you would have been better off going to a Tier 1 school online instead and forking out more dollars for bigger name recognition? Like I said there the University of Memphis close to where I live where I could attend for the online MIS program, but the cost is double that of Columbia College or TESC or anywhere else. Do you feel for Federal jobs it's worth it having name recognition or do you feel just having the degree and experience is better in the long run?

[Prloko]

Prloko I think I have asked before, but since you have a Federal Job I might need to ask again. Do you feel that have a degree from a RA school has helped. Do you think you would have been better off going to a Tier 1 school online instead and forking out more dollars for bigger name recognition? Like I said there the University of Memphis close to where I live where I could attend for the online MIS program, but the cost is double that of Columbia College or TESC or anywhere else. Do you feel for Federal jobs it's worth it having name recognition or do you feel just having the degree and experience is better in the long run?

Do you already have experience in this position? For getting a Fed position, two things are key; that your experience matches the job announcement and prior federal or military experience (which can either make you eligible for certain positions or give you points).

The degree doesn't play much unless you are applying for the internship programs, then they tend to favor "selective" schools. In my office, we have people in the same positions that graduated from selective schools like G'Town and GWU, and even NA schools like UMT. The key here was work experience

[sanantone]

This should have gone in the general education forum.

[tsimmns]

I'm sorry for putting in the wrong area. sanatone, how did you like the CIS degree from TESC?