NEEDING ADVICE for my IT Studies next year

Option 2 but don't underestimate the time requirements and energy a full time job takes - a busy day and the last thing you'll feel like doing is opening up the books when you get home..

If you can negotiate with the company for a more 'intern' position where you can leave early or possibly get a day/two off a week for studies... then get your degree completed asap else you'll drag it out for years or never finish it.

Edit: Also I highly recommend checking out www.londoninternational.ac.uk as an alternative, they have exams centers in Cape Town and offer a far superior (albeit harder) Comp Sci course compared to most local options, costs aren't too bad. PM me if you have any questions, I've completed courses with them successfully myself.
 
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SuperMario said:
Just to clear things up for you. In your situation option 2 will obviously be the best option. However don't believe these people telling you CTI is bad. I finished my BSc IT degree there two weeks ago. They have very good facilities and the course material is also very good. I was at the Durbanville campus, so I don't know how their other campuses are. All the people in my class who put in effort in their degree with me the past 3 years all have jobs now, so in the end it's up to you.
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You're an exception or lying.
 
MarcDD said:
Hey guys I'm 19 years old and I need to plan my studies for next year. Any help or advice would be appreciated.. I'm from Cape Town btw..

So I have TWO options for my studies next year.

OPTION 1:
Study at CTI for the B.Sc Information Technology. It's CRAZY expensive, roughly R68K per year. My parents can't afford this, so I would have to take a student loan and pay roughly R200K of debt back after my studies once I'm working.
And has anyone here studied at CTI for the B.Sc IT degree?

OR OPTION 2:
Study through UNISA for the B.Sc Informatics and work full-time at a Software Company whereby they will be training me and mentoring me. It's a paid Junior Developer position and I think the pay is farely decent. Going for another meeting next week regarding the salary etc.. And they said it will be a long term position, so it's not like I'm there working for only just a year.

So it's either I'm stuck with loads of debt after my studies OR it's gaining practical knowledge in the working environment from senior developers while tackling my degree through UNISA. Oh yes and UNISA is heaps cheaper than CTI per year..

I'm just afraid I won't cope with working full-time and doing studies at the same time, But I guess I do have up to 8 years to finish the UNISA B.Sc Degree :) Only advantage from CTI would be having actual lectures on the work and being able to work with fellow students together on projects etc.. As programming can become daunting when you in trouble, but then again I have Google. XD

Any advice would be helpful.
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Unisa

/thread.


CTI and all these other excuses are cray cray expensive.
 
SuperMario said:
Just to clear things up for you. In your situation option 2 will obviously be the best option. However don't believe these people telling you CTI is bad. I finished my BSc IT degree there two weeks ago. They have very good facilities and the course material is also very good. I was at the Durbanville campus, so I don't know how their other campuses are. All the people in my class who put in effort in their degree with me the past 3 years all have jobs now, so in the end it's up to you.
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The difference is that a lot of people succeed despite CTI, not because of CTI. They're shady, dishonest and unethical and they prey on bright-eyed matrics who fall for their flashy marketing tricks.

Whatever you can do at CTI, you can do cheaper elsewhere and at a better standard. All these FET colleges are the same.
 
UNISA, definitely

Look at BSc Computing though, a harder curriculum but better if you are interested in computer science. Be prepared for a lot of late nights though.

I did a BSc Computing, took 4 years of hard work but worth it
 
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Thanks for all the feedback guys!! Much appreciate it! :) It looks like I'm going with Option 2 (working & studying).
 
I would take option 2. You get a degree and experience and it will be far cheaper. It is difficult study in the evenings but millions do it (even with kids etc) so why can't you?

Regarding CTI:
I think some people here have caught on to the CTI bashing thread and are expressing their opinion without much experience. I have a CTI diploma and 95% through the BSc Informatics Degree at Unisa so feel l have a good idea of both. I ended up in management and not a dev so for me the Informatics degree was necessary. I am still in close contact with many of my peers from CTI and some of them are not doing so well (mainly the doff ones) but the majority have got good jobs and some have even done exceptionally well working for some big names. I think it is what you make of it and it did help me get my foot in the door and have climbed the ranks since. Some things are not so lekker like them using ex students as 'lecturers' but I can promise you I got more from them than I have from half of the professors at Unisa. Some Unisa modules are really atrocious with study guides that are riddled with mistakes, exams that don't match the syllabus, really obvious things which you would think are impossible but they do happen at Unisa and can be incredibly demotivating. I think I also would have struggled with an open distance learning institution as a 18/19 year old. CTI were strict and kept me (and my parents) in check.

So yeah.. With all that said I would still go for Unisa as on the whole it is quite good besides for a few admin nightmares and a handful of rubbish lecturers. It is also significantly cheaper and you will get the work experience(pure gold) at the same time. There is no way I will pay 200k for a CTI degree when I can get that.
 
MarcDD said:
IT is my passion though man! :) I'm just curious as to why you disapprove studying IT ??
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There is nothing wrong with IT, it is increasing in demand globally. You will always have a job in IT. If it's your passion, go for it!:)
 
MarcDD said:
IT is my passion though man! :) I'm just curious as to why you disapprove studying IT ??
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You're going to study forever as new technology comes out all the time. Once you're an accountant, Dr, chemist, economist, etc you are that. Very difficult to stay up to date in IT.
 
Oppiekoffie said:
You're going to study forever as new technology comes out all the time. Once you're an accountant, Dr, chemist, economist, etc you are that. Very difficult to stay up to date in IT.
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Wife is an accountant, same difference if you want stay earning at the top
 
I was in the same position as yourself not too long ago. I chose to be an intern and I could code in Ruby/Rails Javascript/Node(Express,Angular). What happened was that I was just being taught what the company used. I moved cities and struggled to get employment cause I had no formal training and not enough experience.
Decided to go to uni and study full-time. As it is now, I have learnt so much and I can explain things that I previously just knew without understanding.
I also think uni will give you more options: networking, big data, software, web, mobile, machine learning etc. Don't restrict yourself by learning a company's stack.
Good luck with whichever option you take!
 
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