Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Principles of Business Information Systems

While the Science Orientation course I took was technically my last orientation course, I'm not sure it's totally accurate to claim that. The Principles of Business Information Systems course I took was probably more accurately labeled a BIS (now MIS) Orientation course. Yes, it's meant for other business majors, too, so they can have a basic understanding of what the IS people do, but that still screams orientation to me, whether or not you're talking to students who will actually major in that field.

The part that was weird was that this was a 300-level course. It's something I never understood. Apparently other people didn't understand it either, because they have since changed it to a 200-level course.

I just never really got it and still don't. If they would change it to a 1 credit 100-level orientation course, I'd totally understand. What are some career options? What do IS professionals contribute to the business environment? Basic terminology related to hardware and software. Trends in the field. Professional organizations. I remember writing a two page paper about my brother in law's business, selling calculators and cables, since back in the 90s, this crazy new e-commerce thing was a pretty big deal.

They actually added some Excel and HTML/CSS to the course. Yes, when they dropped it down from a 300-level to a 200-level course they added more stuff to it. That may have been to keep them from having to drop it to a 100-level course.

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