Undergraduate Concentrations for Information Technology Students

The Information Technology department at the School of Professional Advancement offers four degree concentrations in Information Technology - Integrated Application Development, Product and Program Support, Enterprise Systems and Cloud, and Cybersecurity. All students in the Information Technology major are required to take 45 credit hours of Information Technology courses. The required 45 credit hours include seven core IT courses (21 hours) and eight technology courses specific to their concentration focus. The eight concentration courses (24 hours) include a summative capstone course.

Students may also major in Information Technology without a concentration by taking the seven (7) core IT courses, along with eight (8) Information Technology courses of their choice at level 3000 or above

Integrated Application Development

The Integrated Application Development concentrations prepare students to design, build and implement integrated application systems for business and other enterprises. Job titles in this concentration include web developer, web designer, application developer, programmer, software developer, software engineer, coder, software architect, and others. US News projects 22 percent employment growth for software developers between 2016 and 2026.

Product and Program Support

By leading organizations in the technology products and  programs of an organization's information systems, IT Product and Program professionals facilitate strategic planning, managerial decision making and operational management within the technology of the organization. Job Titles include Program Manager, Project Manager, Business Analyst, Application Tester, Testing Support Specialist, Automated Test Engineer, Product Owner, Product Specialist, Product Support, Scrum Master, Quality Assurance Engineer, DevOps specialist, Process Manager, Governance Lead and many others. As Agile, DevOps, and Lean processes continue to advance in industry, and software and application development programs continue to expand, there is a significant need for staff to support all aspects of the process around the application development and software engineering teams to ensure quality, on-time delivery, adherence to budget and efficiency – this concentration will prepare students for these roles.

Cybersecurity

To help meet the need for more information security professionals, the Cybersecurity concentration is designed to prepare students for success in IT Security, Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, and Information System Security. Building off the core of the Information Technology Bachelor’s program, the concentration covers key areas of cyber and computing security that impart the knowledge and skills needed to thwart malicious cyber activity and to build and maintain secure systems and networks. Job titles in this concentration include information security officer, security engineer, cyber analyst, information security engineer, network security architect, and others. Employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 28 percent from 2016 to 2026, much faster than the average for all occupations. Demand for information security analysts is expected to be very high, as these analysts will be needed to create innovative solutions to prevent hackers from stealing critical information or causing problems for computer networks.

Enterprise Systems and Cloud

The Enterprise Systems and Cloud concentration prepares students to facilitate an organization's critical technology infrastructure in enterprise, hybrid and cloud-based platforms. System, Network and Cloud professionals guide the selection and integration of the technology products that constitute the organizations' planning, decision making and operational infrastructure. Additionally, engineers use tools to automate infrastructure, workflows and continually measuring application performance by building collaborative infrastructure between development, systems (both on-prem and cloud), networking, security, and Operations (DevOps). Job titles in this concentration include system engineer, technology architect, network engineer, system administrator, server administrator, cloud architect, cloud developer, cloud engineer, virtualization administrator, and others. The digitization of government and business demands skilled employees manage the technical infrastructure. Employment of enterprise systems and cloud workers is projected to grow 12 percent from 2016 to 2026, faster than the average for all occupations.