System Administration under Computer Science?

As a new student looking into the Information Systems program at SFSU, I was surprised to  find technical IS courses offered under the the computer science department (CSC) and not Information Systems department.

Namely there was one particular course that stood out and that's CSC 651: System Administration.

This is the following course description:

User administration. Operating system installation, tuning, and control. Network administration. Security management. Performance tuning and management. Extra fee required.

(reference: http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/courses/35184.htm)

Obviously, this type of course would be within IT and should not require extensive math, and computer programming education. 

The chain of prerequisites for this course are 7 courses: CSC 210, CSC 212, CSC 213, CSC 313, MATH 226, MATH 227, and MATH 324.  Alternatively, students can take this type of course at any number of community colleges in California without the prerequisites or excessive costs involved to take this at SFSU.

Difference between IT and IS?

Following up on the enigma of Information Systems at San Francisco State, I spoke with Dr. Beckman, a really awesome professor here, especially in lectures, vast knowledge, good attitude and charisma, and strong professionalism, both as a professor, and coupled strong industry experience.

So, what is the difference between IT (Information Technology) and IS (Information System)?

Essentially information systems are all the technologies used by an organization to control and manage information, which includes people, data, and policies.  Information technologies, however, refer to the actual technologies used to control and manage information, which includes the hardware, software, and networks used in the information systems.

Information Systems teaches both IS and IT with the focus more oriented toward IS.  As the actual technologies vary from one organization to another, SFSU should not focus strictly on one technology or another.  Specifically, in a course ISYS 464 Managing Enterprise Data, taught by Dr. Beckman, the foucs is not on any particular brand of database, and is oriented toward database design. Students that complete ISYS 464 could reasonably apply for a job labeled as "Database Designer", but not for a job labeled "Database Administrator".  The former is not generally tied to a particular technology whereas the latter definitely is.

(Note: Used actual quotes that are in highlighted text as the material is described so succintly)

Cannot Learn IT at SFSU?

I had a good discussion with David Chao about learning IT at SFSU.  Essentially from what I understood, is that IT is too technical in scope for an undergraduate degree in ISYS (Information Systems) at SFSU.  An ISYS undergraduate program would be more focused on light application development, such as dragging buttons onto a sheet to design a user interface and maybe connect user interface to a back end database, or some light web programming with something like PHP. 

Given that this is only one professor's view and also the fact that he teaches these particular courses, his scope is understandably narrow.  I would be curious to explore views from other faculty about Information Systems at San Francisco State University.

Quality of Education at California State

I don't want to be cynical, but I think the quality of 4-year education has sunk to an all time low in USA.  I am now attending SFSU as a business major.  In my courses, I see gross generalizations, over simplification, and general lack of objectivity.  The overall curriculum in Information Systems, touches some conceptual material, but fails to prepare students with hard skills like system administration.

I learned that the emphasis of an undergraduate degree is suppose to be general concepts.  Thus subjects like Economics and History are great for those wishing to pursue a law degree, or other topics like Philosophy and Politics are also good foundation concept courses for a variety of graduate studies.

For those pursuing only an undergraduate degree, trying to acquire skills for employment, the quality  of material covered is of questionable quality. An undergraduate degree, for example, in something like Information System, is woefully inadequate for industry, unless combined with material beyond the courses taught at SFSU.

One course that was particularly disturbing is BUS 360 Business Communication.  This course has been completely automated on the Aplia system.  The topics covered are basic communication skills that were taught in grade school, such as writing a business letter, and remedial English grammar.  The information is so general that anyone without experience, including my Chinese roommate, can easily score over 80% taking the online exam.  As an active mind wanting to learn, I feel this course is a waste of money, but required to get that eventual degree.  I will have to pursue acquiring this knowledge outside of SFSU, such as an extension course, community college, or elsewhere.

Some instructors don't seem particularly bothered about the course or its content. One professor commented about another course being automated by Aplia, where a colleague wanted to have her own final.  He jokingly remarked, why have academic integrity there, if you don't have it elsewhere in the course, just go all the way and have the final online and automated.

I think though I am beginning to understand why professors, and more especially the administrators are not concerned.  Simply put, the public universities are not here to teach.  Yes, you heard me correctly, their goal is not here to teach.

Public institutions are accredited and recognized for their research, not for educating students. In fact, any transparent measurement that would determine how successful universities are at teaching is blocked politically through wealthy lobbying groups in Washington.

The students purpose at the university is to be cropped, so that the universities can shovel more money for themselves, giving administrators raises, and feeding unions with incompetent staff (who aren't measured in their ability to perform their duty) while at the same time, increasing tuition expenses at outrageous staggering amounts.  The costs of a university education has even outpaced the rising costs in health care by 63% (1983 to 2007).  I found a lot of haunting facts about this in a great article that illustrates the failures of our public American universities is That Old Education Lie by Kevin Carey.