Skip to main content

Student Resources

Resources for Current IT students

IT professionals focus on meeting the needs of technology users within an organizational and societal context through the selection, creation, application, integration and administration of computing technologies. They must, therefore, have a good understanding of the various information technologies and the type of activity in which the organization is involved. The BSIT prepares students for careers as IT professionals.

The Georgia Southern BSIT program may be completed at the Statesboro Campus or at the Armstrong Campus in Savannah. Students complete a set of core IT courses, a required internship experience, and an IT specialization area with options in Information Management, Networking and Datacenter Management, Web and Mobile Foundations, or Cyber Security.

Students may choose the BSIT with a Data Science concentration available at the Statesboro Campus. In addition to common IT core courses, the data science degree also requires courses that focus on the skills needed to manage big data. See what’s different about the Data Science concentration and read more about big data and the emerging data science scene at Georgia Southern.

Networking Labs

There are two labs that mirror images of each other, separated by a folding wall. Each lab has 36 seats or 72 when joined. It is rare that we join the rooms for instruction. Joining the rooms is utilized for special events when the standard classroom model is not needed.

The student seating is arranged for easy access for the faculty member to move behind the students to offer support. The desks are lab tables that stand taller than an average computer table and require taller chairs. The tables are significant enough to allow students to build, dismantle, and diagnose other equipment, adding to the adaptability of the lab. The height of the tables allow students to work at the tables without having to be seated.  Seats are simple rolling stools with backs.

The room is carpeted with simple 2×2 carpet squares. This allows portions of the carpet to be replaced when stained or worn but more importantly, allows students to be able to remove sections of the carpet to expose the raised flooring below. The raised flooring is only 4 inches high but allows for the room to change over time and allows the network floor boxes to be easily maintained. It also allows students to work with structured cabling and not just patch cables.

There are two networks in each classroom: one private to the classroom and one that connects to the campus network. Each of the classrooms is on an individual vlan so that if and when students make mistakes, problems are confined to the classroom. The private network allows students to build and test many different scenarios without worry of damage to exterior systems. Both networks terminate in floor boxes and are then connected into the desks where students can quickly change from one network to the other.

The other termination point for the campus network is a network closet that is not accessible to the students and is a patch panel in the front of the room for the private network. The patch panels for the private network are mounted into a half ­height rack that also contains varied networking equipment. This equipment is then accessible to the students at their seats.

One of the classrooms is equipped with computers with two network interfaces. This lab is used to teach some of the upper level networking courses, specifically some of the virtualization courses. The other lab’s computers have only one interface and this lab is used to teach some of the lower level courses where more hands-­on configuration is necessary.

The teacher’s station for each classroom is equipped with a computer with dual monitors, one of which can be mirrored to the overhead projector. Also in the station is a document scanner, BlueRay player, and connections for a laptop. Some classroom management software is on each of the instructor machines but otherwise, the instructor computers are the same as the student computers.

To augment the networking equipment located at the front of the classrooms, 10 carts on wheels, each with routers, switches, a server, firewall, and a console, are available to be used in either classroom or elsewhere in the building. We have found that making sure that students have full view of the network (the raised flooring hides one run) from end to end aids in their understanding.

Virtual Networking & development: Real-world simulations in virtual machines.  

Learn new skills while simulating real network configurations, practicing incremental changes, developing a website, and deploying your own server and active directory.  Use Virtual Machines to facilitate easy backup and restore, allowing you to work without fear of irreversible consequences.  In this project we’ll install and configure three operating systems: Windows 10, Windows Server, and Ubuntu.  Next, we’ll configure the operating systems and our network to work together, simulating real setups. For more information, please click here which is developed and maintained by our student Michael Woodcock.

Career Services @ Georgia Southern

Visit the Career Services website for information about jobs and Career Fairs. Be sure to take advantage of the Student Resources and guides to interviews, writing cover letters and resumes and more.

Other Useful Sites

Internship Requirements

Many programs include an on-site or face-to-face requirement as an essential element of a course or program. As appropriate, precautions will be made to allow for social distancing, reduced population density within workspaces, provision of personal protective equipment, and other efforts to reduce the potential spread of COVID-19. Where the on-site or face-to-face field experience is essential to the course or program, the expectation is that students will report to their placement.

Undergraduate students with questions regarding their field experiences should first reach out to their internship coordinator and graduate students should contact their program director.

Students seeking accommodation due to a medical condition or disability should engage in the disability accommodation process through the Student Accessibility Resource Center. Additional information can be found on their webpage: https://students.georgiasouthern.edu/sarc/.  On-site or face-to-face experiences cannot generally be substituted for remote experiences as long as placement sites remain open and available to students. However, other accommodations may be available to assist students in successfully completing their field experiences.

Student employees (including teaching assistants, lab assistants, and graduate assistants) seeking an accommodation related to their employment should engage in the disability accommodation process through Human Resources. To request an employment accommodation, student employees should complete the following form and submit it to Human Resources: https://jobs.georgiasouthern.edu/wp-content/uploads/ADA-Accommodation-Request-Form-1.docx

The policies, processes, and forms referenced above are subject to change as needed in response to USG and public health guidance.

What You Need to Know

When should you complete the internship requirement?

Before you graduate! Typically you will need to have completed the following six courses. However, each internship requires different skills, so it depends.

  • IT 1130
  • IT 1430
  • IT 2333
  • IT 2430
  • IT 3231
  • IT 3233

Please note, IT4790 is a 3 hour for-credit course with standard tuition and fees

How do you obtain an internship?

  1. Contact your Career Development Specialist at the Office of Career & Professional Development:
    • Work on your resume
    • Use Handshake to post your resume and search for internships
    • Apply for internships
  2. Look at the posted internships in the Internships or Part-time Jobs section and contact us if you are interested

How to get registered for the internship class?

Once you have an internship position*, then you need to:

*You may want to contact the instructor to confirm that the internship meets IT4790 requirements.

What is required?

  • Submit a weekly work log
    • Work a minimum 15 hours per week on average for fall and spring(20 for summer)
  • Maintain documentation of work you perform (receive permission of employer)
    • Samples of work product
    • Screenshots
    • Copies of web pages, databases, code, etc.
  • Submit a final report when the internship is completed.

How are you evaluated?

You are evaluated by the employer (midterm & final evaluation). You are also evaluated by the IT4790 instructor.

Internship Forms and Resources

IT Internship Contact Information

All IT students must obtain approval for internships from the instructor.

Industry Alliances

VMware Academy

Georgia Southern University is an established leader in virtualization education. The University’s Department of Information Technology was the first four-year higher education institution to teach VMware by becoming a VMware IT Academy in 2008. The University was chosen by VMware as the first Regional VMware IT Academy. Our students have an opportunity to get a VMware Datacenter Virtualization certification (VCP-DCV) when graduating from the Regional VMware IT Academy at Georgia Southern University.

Linux Professional Institute Approved Academic Partner

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is the world’s premier Linux certification organization. Georgia Southern University’s Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing joined Linux Professional Institute’s (LPI) training partner program as an LPI Approved Academic Partner. Students majoring in Information Technology here at Georgia Southern University specialize in Network and Datacenter Administration, Information Management, or Web and Multimedia Foundations. All of these areas can trace their roots to Linux or Unix. Pursuing LPI certification is a great opportunity for our students to strengthen their academic knowledge and career-readiness.

Microsoft Academic Alliance

Azure Dev Tools for Teaching is a Microsoft Program that supports technical education by providing access to Microsoft software for learning, teaching and research purposes. Students registered for a course offered by the College of Engineering and Computing have premium access to Microsoft’s software library, providing Microsoft professional-level developer and designer tools at no cost. Azure Dev Tools for Teaching has a software catalog of over 500 products and is for qualifying technical departments only.

Last updated: 2/5/2024