After gaining accreditation from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, UT-D began offering courses toward both bachelor's and master's degrees in technology engineering. Already in the first year, we've got 200 people enrolled. At UT's flagship campus in Austin, administrators were dealing with an explosion of computer science majors, making it impossible for nonmajors to take those courses. So last fall, administrators introduced the Elements of Computing program, a series of six classes designed to teach noncomputer science majors essential skills. In the first two classes, students learn programming in the Java computer language and design software using pre-defined packages and patterns.
Later courses focus on specific applications, such as networking, graphics or scientific computing.
That's almost a guarantee of a job if you have some background in computer science. Work-force education is one of the main goals of community colleges such as Austin Community College and Eastfield College in Dallas. Ezra Penermon, technical work force development manager for Texas Instruments, said the company looks to those schools to produce workers specialized in electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, among others. Dick Baldwin, an ACC instructor, said his courses are full of students seeking new opportunities. I have people right out of high school or early in their college careers who don't have a technical background and would like to move in that direction.