Before I came to Syracuse University, I believed the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs were the best home colleges to enroll in. Four years later, my view has changed.

Among many student perceptions, the School of Information Studies is one of the most underrated home colleges at SU.

It’s interesting to note the March ranking by U.S. News and World Report, which revealed that information management and technology was not one of the top five majors at SU, despite the growing technology job sector.

This has to do with how uncharted the field of technology is.

The iSchool’s undergraduate program did not start until 1987. Today, there are only approximately 700 undergraduate students enrolled. Schools like Newhouse, founded in 1964 with a current student population of 1800 undergraduates, and Maxwell, founded in 1924 with currently 1780 undergraduates, have existed far longer. Therefore, they have built up a much larger alumni base advocating for their perspective schools.

Despite rumors that acceptance into the iSchool is easier than other home colleges, current trends in the job market show students should take advantage of the accessible program.

Although the information technology job sector had a slight decrease in employment at the end of 2012, it was still outperforming the U.S. employment market overall, according to the Digital Information Systems’ website.

DISys’ industry news studies show that for certain IT positions, “thousands — even tens of thousands — of positions remain unfilled, largely because they are so new and lack qualified candidates.”

Another commonly missed theme is the continued success the iSchool has had throughout the years. While Whitman’ undergraduate business school ranking has plummeted to 72nd, according to BusinessWeek, the iSchool has excelled.

The school is producing resourceful students with a rarity: skills that the job market actually needs. Many students in the iSchool know more than basic IT skills. Students understand concepts like coding and are able to comfortably work with programming languages such as Java and MySQL.

The iSchool can boast an 87 percent job placement rate and an average yearly starting salary of more than $60,000, which is the highest starting salary across the university, according to the SU’s admissions website.

Students in the iSchool are finding internships and jobs at premiere companies such as JP Morgan, The Huffington Post and Google.

Other innovative students in the iSchool are even taking advantage of the increased tech presence in entrepreneurship and starting their own companies.

For instance, junior iSchool student Max Kaplan recently co-founded Thikteo. Thikteo.com is an online network that manages the recruitment process among fraternities and sororities.

This past summer, Kaplan and the rest of the Thikteo team spent time in Syracuse working out of the Sandbox, an incubator for student entrepreneurs.
The website has been live for two months and the company is in talks with several universities interested in using Thikteo for their greek communities.

Being in the iSchool and starting an online business have been valuable for Kaplan. When asked how he felt about his post-college plans, Kaplan said, “I feel like I have the skills to succeed in the job market immediately after I graduate.”

With innovative thinkers and a great curriculum, the iSchool is becoming one of the best investments one can make at SU.

So when students choose a school, and want to better their chance of graduating with a job, they might want to look a little closer at the results and focus less on reputation.

Bram Berkowitz is a senior advertising and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on September 26, 2013 at 1:47 am