CTI Launches Interactive Media and IT Project Management Programs
August 31, 2007
For executives of many companies, it’s a refrain that has become all too common: a new, expensive business-wide information technology project is initiated. And despite high expectations, the project comes in months late, over budget, and with less functionality than originally promised.
The problem, according to industry surveys, is a lack of skilled information technology (IT) project managers in the work force. Employers consistently rank IT project management as one of their most glaring needs. Additionally, in the era of stricter federal financial reporting requirements, such as those mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, and with the forces of globalization and outsourcing in play, IT departments are being asked to do more than ever by corporate management.
Responding to these market demands, CTI, one of the Midwest’s largest information technology schools, is launching a master’s degree program in IT project management this fall.
The program - aimed at students with a bachelor’s degree and IT experience - seeks to combine their technology skills with a set of project leadership and process management skills to produce exemplary IT project managers.
Interactive Media DegreeComputing technology is no longer confined to PCs. Numerous handheld media devices, entertainment systems and multimedia cell phones populate the marketplace today. Along those lines, technology education is no longer confined to teaching pure technical and programming skills.
Developing applications and content for this new generation of technology takes both keen technical skills and an unbridled creative mind. A new major offered this fall by CTI is designed to nurture both.
Seeking to bridge the technical and creative sides of a computer science education, the new bachelor of science degree in interactive media is aimed at helping graduates go on to successful careers as Web producers, multimedia content providers, application designers and many other new media positions.
Replacing CTI’s undergraduate program in human-computer interaction (HCI), the new degree program incorporates several of the HCI program courses. However, the program adds unique course sequences in Web design, multimedia production and interactive application implementation. Additionally, students can fulfill the elective requirements of the degree by taking courses from CTI’s broad range of creative technology programs, including digital cinema, computer game development and animation. Selected art courses from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences also can be applied to the degree’s elective component.
