A College Student With Questions...

[TC10284]

Hey all,

I'm a college student in central North Carolina (In Lexington - near Triad/Greensboro area). I am currently taking transfer courses at a community college so I can transfer into a university. I have been interested in BOINC and (participated in) BOINC projects for around a year or so. I was wondering if there were any colleges or universities around my area that has a part in any type of BOINC projects or grid computing. I know that NC State Univ. would probably be the most likely university to do this since they are a college of engineering but I have not heard anything about this. I also know that IBM has a location in Research Triangle Park (near Raleigh) but I don't know if that location does anything with World Comm. Grid or grid computing in general.

I realize that working with BOINC or projects that run on the platform would be more aimed toward a computer programmer, however, I'm more of a networking/hardward/OS focused person. I am working toward the Cisco CCNA and would most likely persue a networking field. However, if I knew that I could go to a university and learn to program for a BOINC project, I would be happy to educate myself more in this. Coding and programming has not been one of my preferences with computers (I've worked computers/networking since I was probably around age 12) but I've not really been exposed to it. I am also very interested in space/astronomy related things such as NASA.

I would like to try to pursue one of these things, and I wish I could associate all of them together. I was just wondering what anyone else thought, if they were having similar interests or if someone has already done this. I would like your comments. I thought I would try to reach out since alot of you guys already have a few of my interests.

 

[acemcmac]

AFAIK, no respectable degree does anything related to network or systems engineering. If you show up to an interview for a technical job and have a degree other than EE, CE or CS, they'll say.... "um, so why don't you at least have a CS degree? I know so many people with CIS, IS, MIS, etc degrees that were literally laughed out of interviews, even though their formal education was FAR more relevant to the job than that of a CS major. There's just a stigma with most of those programs that screams "I'm not smart enough for CS." You can disagree with me all you want, and I know a lot of people will, but I urge anyone looking at degree programs and wanting to take technical jobs to stay away from anything "lower" than CS. You can get CS programs with networking concentrations.

My $0.02

 

[TC10284]

So then basically, your suggestion is to go to an engineering school such as NCSU (or elsewhere) with a programming focus (BS in CS) and have a networking focus? That or a Computer Engineering degree?

What if the college lists the degree not specifically as "Computer Science"? Would you/they still consider that "lower" than a CS degree?
I am just concerned because I've not really been exposed to much programming and I don't want to delve into the course and be, possibly unable to handle it. I love computers with a passion, and also space-related stuff. I think I can handle it if I really put all my motivation into what I chose to do.