# CIS in Criminal Justice? [Please Help]



## fire50 (Nov 18, 2011)

I am currently enrolled at a Community College and am doing my first semester. My major is Criminal Justice because my school has a partnership with John Jay School of Criminal Justice so after completing two years, I will be able to get my Bachelors at John Jay. The major I have in mind is called: Computer Information Systems in Criminal Justice and Public Administration (BS).



> My background: Very poor grades in High School so I have to get about 24-28 credits so that colleges, if I choose not to go down the Criminal Justice path, will not look at my High School grades & SAT scores. I am currently finishing my first semester and will have 14 credits after completion.


I originally was going to take the CIS major in my Community College but I talked to someone in the CIS departement and they said you can expect to lose anywhere from 15-20 credits when going to a four year school in CIS. One advantage to a Criminal Justice degree is that all credits will transfer but I do NOT want a degree in something useless. :nono:

Many people tell me that this is a good major to pick but I am not convinced... *My fear is that this major is so specialized that I will not get hired by anyone besides government agencies :scared:. *

Here is the course and requirements for it: Click Here. This major makes me take Criminal Justice courses such as Policing, Corrections, etc which makes sense since its a Criminal Justice degree but I have mixed feelings about this degree......

I want to have a career as a Network Administrator/Network Security so it seems like this would be a good choice but since this is a rather new degree _I want_ _as many opinions as possible._

This is very important to me so please post anything that can help. Thank you for taking time to help me out!


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## Lockheart (Nov 18, 2011)

I've lurked here a while but figured this would be a good post to start contributing on the forum.

Personally I this it's a good degree. I see it as an Information Systems degree with a specialization in Criminal Justice and Public Administration. During an interview, promote your technical knowledge and note you have an interest in securing an enterprise environment. Plenty of companies worry about data theft through malicious intent or negligence.

I went to school for Computer Science with a specialization in web programming. Today I'm a network admin and I don't do any heavy lifting programming. The closest I get is scripting using Notepad++. We hire out for our programming needs. So I don't think you'd be typecast as a government IT person if you didn't want to be. 

Good luck with your program. In the end, education is never a bad thing if you learn something from it.


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## fire50 (Nov 18, 2011)

Lockheart said:


> Personally I this it's a good degree. I see it as an Information Systems degree with a specialization in Criminal Justice and Public Administration. During an interview, *promote your technical knowledge and note you have an interest in securing an enterprise environment. Plenty of companies worry about data theft through malicious intent or negligence.*


Ya I was thinking the same way but wanted opinions on this major because I have not, personally, met any Criminal Justice majors in the IT world... In other words as much information I can get about this major because it is a relatively new major. Thanks for the contribution :beerchug:.


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