Need help asap, Bachelor of Applied Tech in CIT or Bachelor of Science in CS

[icircuit]

I am currently attending my community college, I will receive my Associate of Science degree in Computer Science by the end of summer. My community college(South Texas College) is 1 of 3 community colleges in the state of Texas accredited to offer bachelor degrees. The bachelor degree I may be interested in is called a BAT-CIT(Bachelors of Applied Technology in Computer Information Technology) this is the only computers related degree offered here. I started the AS degree in CS here at STC with the intentions of transferring to a university to pursue a bachelors in CS. Due to my financial status and paying out of pocket I am considering pursuing the BAT-CIT program here at STC, being an older back to school student, 30 to be exact is also playing a part in making my decision. I would like to graduate with a bachelors asap, if I stay at STC I could finish by next summer or next December due to having some prior credits. If I transfer out to a university I wouldn't graduate until possibly half a year after.

I would really like to make my decision based on how much more value a university degree would have over a non heard of community college bachelors of apply tech degree, when it comes to employment.

I actually like the BAT-CIT program and the courses offered, it almost seems as if it would be a BS degree at a university. Its coupled with other programming courses and concentrated in networking. In my personal opinion I believe it can be good to group programming and networking, I like both.

If I decide to transfer out I am looking at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, they offer a program I am really interested in. TAMUCC offers a Bachelors of Computer Science concentrated in Cyber Security. This course also combines my interests CS/CyberSecurity. Looking at the degrees plans from my community college and Corpus they seem similar of course except for some courses.

What comes into play in my eyes, again is how much does the university degree outweigh the CC degree. If I went to Corpus I would be spending between 15k to 20k more according to calculations I have made based on everything/living expenses ect, and take another full semester to graduate. I have had a small side business that has helped me fund my education, but money is running short. I am looking for a career change to pursue what I always wanted to do getting out of High School.

If you where in my situation what would you do.

 

I have taken all the CS core courses for my AS degree except for the final course which I will be taking starting tomorrow, I have managed to have  4.0 gpa under this degree plan. This final course is Advanced Structured Languages, my instructor told me the course is pretty much Java. I should receive my AS degree in computer science by the end of summer.

This is the Associate of Science in Computer Science degree plan at STC(listed only CS courses). I will have this degree by the end of the summer...

COSC 1336-Programming Fundamentals 1=C++
COSC 1337-Programming Fundamentals 2=C++
COSC 2336-Programming Fundamentals 3=C++
COSC 2325-Computer Organization and Machine Language
COSC 2330- Advanced Structured Languages=Unix/Java programming
Calculus 1- part of CS curriculum

This is the Bachelors of Applied Tech in CIT at STC(southtexascollege) degree plan, My CS courses would be applied to this plan as technical hours....

COSC 1301-Micro Computer Applications
COSC 1430-Computer Programming= Visual Basic Programming
COSC 1315- Programming Fundamentals=Web programming
CITP 3310-Survey of Programming Languages=C# programming
CITP 4350-Advanced Computer Programming=C# programming
CITP 4340-Android/IOS Programming
CITP 4316-Advanced Web Design
CITP 3320-Database Management=SQL/Oracle/ect
CITP 3360-Digital Image Processing and Presentation
ITNW 1425-Fundamentals of Networking
ITNW 2421-Networking with TCP/IP
CITP 3313-Fundamentals of Information Security
ITSW 2443- Computer System Forensics
ITSC 1405- PC Operating Systems
CITP 4330-Advanced Network Security
CITP 3305- System Analysis and Design
CITP 4345- Data Communications Convergent Technology
CITP 3312- Advanced Networking

This is the Bachelors of Computer Science with concentration in Cyber Security and Infrastructure from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi....down below...

COSC 1435 Introduction to Problem Solving with Computers I 4 hrs.
COSC 1436 Introduction to Problem Solving with Computers II 4 hrs.
COSC 2334 Computer Architecture 3 hrs.
COSC 2437 Data Structures 4 hrs.
COSC 3336 Introduction to Database Systems 3 hrs.
COSC 3346 Operating Systems 3 hrs.
COSC 3370 Software Engineering 3 hrs.
COSC 3400 Skills for Computing Professionals 4 hrs.
COSC 4354 Senior Capstone Project 3 hrs.
MATH 2413 Calculus I 4 hrs.
MATH 2305 Discrete Mathematics I 3 hrs.
MATH 3342 Applied Probability Statistics 3 hrs.
COSC 2365 System Administration I 3 hrs.
COSC 2366 Network Administration I 3 hrs.
COSC 3351 Internet Programming 3 hrs.
COSC 3365 Cyber Defense I 3 hrs.
COSC 4342 Computer Networks 3 hrs.
COSC 4365 System Administration II 3 hrs.
COSC 3366 Network Administration II 3 hrs.
COSC 4368 Cyber Defense II 3 hrs.
Upper-division Computer Science Elective 15 hrs.(would need to choose CS courses)

If I transfer to TAMUCC they wont give me credit for STC COSC2330.

What do you think of these degree plans, Do you think the STC bachelors is more of a CS related degree or do you think it is right on track with CIT?

What plan do you think I would benefit more from employment wise, does the name of the degree and school say a lot?

Would I also benefit in having an AS in CS with a STC BAT-CIT degree when it comes to employment, I might also be able to get an additional degree if I stay at STC, an AS in CIS.

 

I like both fields, I can see myself having a steady job in IT, while on the side, self teaching myself further programming and coding on my own for extra income. But then again I could see myself wanting to go straight into programming after receiving the BATCIT degree, and I don't know wether having this degree would be enough to land me a starting job in a programming field.

 

There is a local university that would save me money, University of Texas Pan American that offers a general BS CS, but I pretty much have ruled it out. I would need to take an extra philosophy course, an extra literature course, and an extra science, but I rather apply these hours to a field that is actually going to help me.

If you were in my situation what would you do...

Your opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[billrach]

First of all, I don't have a CS degree or any experience working in the tech industry so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

But I noticed that the BS in CIT does not have a data structures or algorithms course.  These are generally very important courses for a programming/software developer position.  

 

I guess it really depends on what you want to do after your degree.  I think the community college CIT degree will be good enough to get you into an IT/Network/Database job.  But if you wanted to get a programmer/software developer job, I would recommend getting a BS in CS at TAMU.  

 

But again, I'm not the most knowledgeable about this.

[icircuit]

The BAT-CIT degree does not, but I would have the Associate of Science degree in Computer Science to go along with it, actually it would be applied to the BAT-CIT degree. The associate of science in CS does include fundamental concepts of data structures and algorithms. Although I wouldn't have the upper division courses, I do not know how much value an AS degree in CS combined with the BATCIT would hold.

Some of the basic descriptions of my Associate of Science CS courses according to the catalog are...

COSC 1336-Programming fundamentals 1 = Software development methodology, data types, control structures, functions, arrays, testing, debugging.

COSC 1337-Programming fundamentals 2 = OO paradigm, classes, OO design, analysis of algorithms, searching/sorting techniques, software engineering.

COSC 2336-Programming fundamentals 3 = data structures/algorithms, recursion, data structures(stacks, queues, linked lists, hash tables, trees, and graphs), algorithmic analysis.

COSC 2330-Advanced Structured Languages=further advanced programming techniques, OO using Java, exploring the UNIX, file system and security, UNIX editors, Unix processing, advanced shell script programming, UNIX utilities, PERL and CGI programming.

COSC 2325- Comp org and machine language= assembly programming, instructional sets, coding arithmetic problems, logical operations, indexing, indirect addressing, digital representation, MACRO commands/programming.

In my original post I just gave the description of c++ and java for the first 4 courses, these I have listed here are the actual basic descriptions of the courses in community college catalog.