Ryerson ITM - Part-Time for IT Professionals

[sojiro]

My questions are mainly directed to working IT Professionals who are doing this. I'm in my 20s in a senior IT technical position in the telecom industry. I'm planning to do ITM Part-Time next year because my workplace has employee education allowances. I'll be able to get direct-entry which would allow me to jump to 3rd year but I'll have to take the 6 reachback courses. Now, going back to school will be hard as I'll have to get in that groove again, but I'm looking forward to it.

So, how's the work load? Generally how many hours per week you have to put in each class?

Would you recommend the online courses or the class courses? Is there a quality difference? How's the quality of the profs in Part-Time compared to day courses?

What's the age demographics like? Is it mostly people in the 20's,30's,40's, .etc. I'm in my 20's so I'd like to get a sense of who I'll be working with in the Part-Time courses.

How's the class atmosphere in Part-Time courses? Like myself, I would be tired after a gruelling day at work, so is it pretty somber?

I'll likely be working with older people for group work and everyone is busy with family, work, personals, and now school so how do you find your group partners?

[peeb]

I'm a 4th year ITM student.. working fulltime and taking school fulltime

The work load is ok. The reachback courses aren't bad, if you're decent at math you won't find any of the reachback courses hard as they are almost all math related. I'd say 4-5 hours per week per course is reasonable, maybe bump that up a bit during tests/assignments.

For the reachback courses I would do them online. You read the textbook, do the homework labs, and do the practice problems in the back of the book... there's no real need to go to class. All the other courses you have to take in-class. A lot of the ITM profs are both Full-time and Part-time, and most of them are pretty good with the exception of a few cough Chauncey cough. Some profs are amazing.

You won't have any problems at all fitting in and finding group mates if you're in your 20s. I'd say > 50% of students don't know a single person in the class and groups are always made on the first or second day. In most the PT ITM classes the average age I'd say is late 20s. Part-time courses are known to be a bit easier when compared with FT because they know that most of the class has a 9-5.

[sv_0_0]

My questions are mainly directed to working IT Professionals who are doing this. I'm in my 20s in a senior IT technical position in the telecom industry. I'm planning to do ITM Part-Time next year because my workplace has employee education allowances. I'll be able to get direct-entry which would allow me to jump to 3rd year but I'll have to take the 6 reachback courses. Now, going back to school will be hard as I'll have to get in that groove again, but I'm looking forward to it.

So, how's the work load? Generally how many hours per week you have to put in each class?

Would you recommend the online courses or the class courses? Is there a quality difference? How's the quality of the profs in Part-Time compared to day courses?

What's the age demographics like? Is it mostly people in the 20's,30's,40's, .etc. I'm in my 20's so I'd like to get a sense of who I'll be working with in the Part-Time courses.

How's the class atmosphere in Part-Time courses? Like myself, I would be tired after a gruelling day at work, so is it pretty somber?

I'll likely be working with older people for group work and everyone is busy with family, work, personals, and now school so how do you find your group partners?

I say definately go for it. I was in your shoes about a year ago, was working in telecome FT and debated really hard whether to go into ITM. ITM is more geared toward business side of things, the IT courses I find are useless. I'm in my 4th year and did the direct entry as well and don't regret coming to Ryerson. The hardest part for me was getting back into studying. Word of advice, don't put so many courses on in ur first year cuz it's gonna take time to get back into school life.

Hours of each class really depends on the course you're doing. IT courses are around 5 hrs with exceptions of few which take more work. ACC and FIN courses you want to spend at least 6 to do decent and more if you want to do really well. They're not hard it's just u need to practice and FIN is a lot of material but it's managable.

I guess everyone's different with online vs in-class. I haven't done on-line but I hear from ppls it's better to do in-class cuz it's more engaging and u don't have to learn the material urself, if you find the right profs esp for ACC and FIN courses.

As for age, PT classes vary from 18-40 cuz some FT students want to take CE classes. You won't have any problems finding group members. If you don't have a group you can always ask around or the prof will help you.

Although everyone says CE is "easier" than day time, I'll have to disagree. They have the same standards as the day time program it really depends on who your prof is and whether they know how to teach the material.

Hope this helps.

[Tereno]

I'm a 4th year ITM student.. working fulltime and taking school fulltime

The work load is ok. The reachback courses aren't bad, if you're decent at math you won't find any of the reachback courses hard as they are almost all math related. I'd say 4-5 hours per week per course is reasonable, maybe bump that up a bit during tests/assignments.

For the reachback courses I would do them online. You read the textbook, do the homework labs, and do the practice problems in the back of the book... there's no real need to go to class. All the other courses you have to take in-class. A lot of the ITM profs are both Full-time and Part-time, and most of them are pretty good with the exception of a few cough Chauncey cough. Some profs are amazing.

You won't have any problems at all fitting in and finding group mates if you're in your 20s. I'd say > 50% of students don't know a single person in the class and groups are always made on the first or second day. In most the PT ITM classes the average age I'd say is late 20s. Part-time courses are known to be a bit easier when compared with FT because they know that most of the class has a 9-5.

Hey there,

I'm wondering how do you do school fulltime and work fulltime as well? What are the course times like? I'm considering going back to school for Masters but I'm only looking at part time options as I really want to stay at my company while it's also financially unfeasible for me.

[peeb]

I take four part-time classes. It depends on the school... both Ryerson and UofT are pretty good with their night classes. Usually they start at 6:30. No idea about the masters... I know for MBAs there is a lot of flexibility tho

[Tereno]

I can't decide if I'd like to go into the ITM for MBA or the MMSc in Management, Tech and Innovation. The courses seem fairly distinct and as the description says, it prepares you for fairly different paths. BUT I do have intentions on taking an MSc .. maybe even a Phd in Com Sci. I'm just wondering how much would the MMSc actually help me with that though.