Business & Engineering
Information Sciences & Technology
Welcome!
As technology has advanced and become more integral to business, government, education and other fields, the demand for individuals who understand and can apply technology to solve problems has grown correspondingly. Graduates of Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) are in demand worldwide for their training and ability to solve a variety of technology oriented problems.
IST graduates go to work in a variety of fields. Network managers design, build and support network infrastructure. Technical project managers take a broad goal such as moving an organization's computer systems and outline the tasks, resources, time and people needed to accomplish the move successfully. Website designers take an objective such as marketing a company and turning that goal into a website that will attract clients and provide information about a business. Interface designers study how people use things like cell phones and mp3 players, and then come up with new ways to make using every day tools and toys easier. If these sound like problems that you would like to solve, IST may be the major and career for you.
When considering an IST major, it is also important to be aware of what IST is not. IST does not train programmers. While several programming courses are a part of the IST major and it is important that IST graduates have a firm understanding of programming, programming is the province of engineering and computer science. If you want to be a programmer, computer engineering or computer science would be a better major. IST students, however, are taught to manage programmers and programming projects to solve technology problems.
The IST program is a four year program at Penn State. While some Penn State campuses offer the full four year program, others offer only the first two years. Penn State Altoona is one of the schools offering only the first two years of the IST degree, so students who start at Penn State Altoona will finish the remaining two years at another Penn State campus. Most of our students continue on to the IST program at University Park to complete their degree.
Mr. David Barnes
Instructor in Computer Science
Business & Engineering
Penn State Altoona
Office: 216 Hawthorn Building
Phone: 814-949-5275
E-mail:
WWW: http://www.personal.psu.edu/drb21
