MBS BIS as Conversion Course

helent4

Hi. I am looking going back to college as a mature student and doing the MBS in BIS.
I have a degree in Business but have zero programming experience. I would be interested in hearing from people who have done this course / are doing this course and can tell me how heavy the programming side of the course is.
Thanks!

x43r0

I did it last year as a conversion course but I came from a programming background so I was doing it for the business side.


It's not that programming on the programming stuff but the course seems to be well respected among employers as a business IT course. So I guess something to think about is do you want to do it to learn to program, or to learn to program enough to get a job? Because it seemed to me that the course teaches the latter

starlit

Just a quick question on what the OP has asked, how strong is the programming content on this course? What programming languages are taught? Is that area technical enough to get a job related to programming?

titan18

If you wanted to programme, does that course teach enough if you were coming from the undergrad BIS course, or is it that they teach you enough to work in something like analysis

helent4

From my perspective as I would be completely new to programming side of things I am wondering if this would be a good course for me to do
From talking to people in IT I know programming can be very technical which is why I am worried bout the course. If it is more for ppl with programming experience I would have a lot of ground to make up in the year.

x43r0

doovdela wrote: »

Just a quick question on what the OP has asked, how strong is the programming content on this course? What programming languages are taught? Is that area technical enough to get a job related to programming?

All the programming we did was web development C#. As a standalone course it's probably not enough to get you a programming job but it does supplement existing programming knowledge nicely

titan18 wrote: »

If you wanted to programme, does that course teach enough if you were coming from the undergrad BIS course, or is it that they teach you enough to work in something like analysis

I would say the latter. It seems like the course is geared towards producing people to go into analyst or consultantcy roles but I think a couple of our class are programming now so if you have an interest in programming then of course this would help you in getting a job of that nature

helent4 wrote: »

From my perspective as I would be completely new to programming side of things I am wondering if this would be a good course for me to do
From talking to people in IT I know programming can be very technical which is why I am worried bout the course. If it is more for ppl with programming experience I would have a lot of ground to make up in the year.

It's really not that heavy on programming. The bulk of the course when I did it was was made up of subjects like business analysis, supply chain management, consultancy skills, business performance measurement, innovation. I would estimate technical stuff to have been about 15% of the course

starlit

I be coming from a similar background from both sides business and IT so have a little bit of experience of programming but only the very basic languages such as vb/vba, java, unix, php, css, html and actionscript only touched on python a little, only introduced to javascript and perl but have no programming experience with javascript and perl and only done a very little bit of python. I have never done c# so maybe this course might be worth doing to balance up my programming?

My degree be similar to the BIS undergrad but only from the business and IS side while my course focused more on multimedia, business/business admin and a little bit of IS but only touched the surface of programming really only did vb/vba, html and actionscript which isn't much compared to what I did in my h dip in applied computing having completed more programming languages in java, unix, php, and css. So thinking this Masters would balance out what I have already??

OP I say you be in a good position doing C# to be honest java will be a popular language I say for a few years yet and is the most common programming language in most IT jobs at the moment.

I am still at odds as to what direction to go BIS, IT, Multimedia

x43r0

doovdela wrote: »

I am still at odds as to what direction to go BIS, IT, Multimedia

If you're looking in terms of most employable, BIS wins hands down. Companies seem to fall over themselves to hire BIS grads, even more so BIS masters grads.

Most of my class (myself included) were sorted for work in December (3 months into the course). It's ridiculous

starlit

That is the impression I am getting at the moment from the jobs market that graduates of BIS are likely to be more employable at the moment and where are all the jobs are at the moment and where they will be in the future. Though I like business and IS side of things I find I prefer the hands on web programming/design stuff and also good at it too and social media aspects. I enjoy the IS and IT side of things too. Though better at some areas than others just looking for work in an area I like, good at and enjoy its difficult at the moment due to either lack of enough skills and experience.

Just trying to figure out what Masters to do but I am over qualified to do the e-commerce one. Trying to find a happy medium too with what I like and good at and what be the best career path to follow as I am still undecided. Have worked in technical support too, like to get back into it but difficult to get work in the 1st level area of it at the moment due to a requirement to have a lot of years experience and a foreign language. Also to weigh up what I am good at and not good at, what I like and don't like in terms of the mixture of business and IT areas.

helent4

Thanks for all the information on the course good to hear from people who are familiar with it. In case anyone needs it I found a link which goes through the modules for the Masters in BIS which might help: http://www.ucc.ie/calendar/postgraduate/Masters/commerce/page02d.html

Dave Bucks

As far as I know if you are coming from a business background with no programming experience, you are ineligible for the mbs in BIS. You must complete one of the other three conversion courses, ebusiness, ISBP or MIMAS

claddy

Dave Bucks wrote: »

As far as I know if you are coming from a business background with no programming experience, you are ineligible for the mbs in BIS. You must complete one of the other three conversion courses, ebusiness, ISBP or MIMAS

No you dont need any programming skills but it is an advantage. The course is far more geared towards business i.e. consulting, project management, requirements gathering and design etc. than technical skills. If you are thinking of doing it next year, you should try and gain a basic knowledge of programming over the summer namely c#.

Dave Bucks

I spoke to two of the main guys last year and they told me that I would struggle with the content of the MBS in BIS if I had not done a computer related degree! I guess they didn't actually say I was ineligible but I was told the mbs in BIS was geared towards consulting and the majority of the class would have done BIS/comp as an undergrad. As I was coming from commerce they recommended doing one of the other three mentioned in the above post. The others, offer more technical subjects which is what I want having studied a lot of theory in commerce. However I have no idea of the type of jobs out there and if all the programming will actually be used in my future career. However all the BIS masters have very good employment records and they're cheap.

helent4

Dave Bucks wrote: »

As far as I know if you are coming from a business background with no programming experience, you are ineligible for the mbs in BIS. You must complete one of the other three conversion courses, ebusiness, ISBP or MIMAS

Thanks Dave. Did you do one of the courses above in the end?
If you did how did you find it after coming from a non IT background?