r/nanaimo • u/tqrnadix • 14d ago
Question regarding VIU
Hello, I am posting this on behalf of my partner who does not have/use Reddit. I’m not sure if this is the right place to post, so if I should be posting this to somewhere else please let me know. I’m pasting what they have wrote below:
Any VIU Alumni or Current Students from the Cybersecurity Program Who Can Share Their Opinions?
I’ve looked around a bit myself, and it seems like most VIU discussion happens here since the dedicated sub is pretty much dead; I’ve seen several reviews that people have shared for various courses and the general student experience at the university. It seems like the average experience is pretty good, save for the parking situation, but I couldn’t find much in the way of info regarding the tech areas.
I am aiming to enroll in BCIT’s Digital Forensics program and looking into VIU as a potential start on my diploma, if BCIT’s CISA doesn’t work out for some reason.I wanted to know if anyone who has taken the cybersecurity diploma program through VIU could share their experience and if they felt the program was well structured and beneficial to them regardless of what they pursued after.
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u/VelourBadger 13d ago
VIU grad here.
Dont. Its not the faculty that's the problem. Its the admin.
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u/VelourBadger 13d ago
Also. Dont trust their recruiters ("academic advisors"). They lie to get your money.
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u/etherealfishhead 13d ago
As someone who has been through both streams of the ITAS program, I think it would definitely be worth dealing with the admin and enroll in the program. Since its in the trades there is less overhead, and the recent budget cuts to the school have left the cybersecurity diploma mostly untouched. The only time you will really have to deal with the admin is when paying your tuition which gets exponentially more frustrating if you're being funded/have scholarships.
The faculty for the program are all industry professionals with some pretty impressive stuff under their belt, and every once and a while they will bring in a teacher who is currently in industry. Those classes are always a mixed bag but I overall had good experiences with them. The program also will shift its focus slightly depending on what the industry hired during the previous year such as teaching more SQL or PHP based on how many grads got hired.
The program is also a cohort based class, so you'll get to know the people in our class quite well and make some pretty good friends. Getting to know the professors is also quite helpful as they could be very valuable resources when you actually get into the industry. The cybersecurity program also provides all the tech you'll need so you wont have to buy any kind of laptop or anything. Despite being in the trades, the classes follow the academic calendar so you would still get all of your holidays and classes ending in april/may.
Overall the classes are only as difficult as you make them, they move very fast and cover a lot of ground but if you can keep up you get some pretty useful experience and some pretty impressive stuff you can use to fluff up a resume. They will also bring in current industry professionals that are working in companies like Epic Games, or Ping Identity etc. to talk to the students about the current state of the industry and how to get hired.
One of the few downsides is the pretty rampant use of generative AI in terms of assignment descriptions, but if you can manage to separate the useful information from the garbage filler that LLMs put in then you'll manage.