I have been admitted to the Western Governors University.  They have an online degree program which fits my schedule.  They also have a major in IT Security which I am contemplating enrolling in.

From a career standpoint, would it be wise to major in Security?  IT Security is what I enjoy, but would a Security emphasis pigeon hole me to only jobs which deal with, well...Security?  Or should I look towards a standard IT degree which would leave the door wide open?

I don't want potential employers to look me over for someone else, thinking that I'll only be able to manage logs from an IDS.

That was the answer that I was looking for Dengar13.  I've got some experience and I recently started chipping away at the MCSE.  I've got one test down and only a million more to go. 

Hopefully with a Security related degree, coupled with the MCSE and support experience, I'll be able to find a niche in almost any environment.

Thanks for the advice.  I'll probably start sometime in June. My plan is to wait for the big President approved tax refund later this year so that I can pay in cash.

I'll let everyone know how smooth the process is until then.  I've already been assigned a mentor, filled out most of the paperwork and had all of my transcripts sent in.  Everything has worked fine so far.

The best part about the whole program is that you can apply many different certs as credits.  My A+ and Security+ cut me out of "assessments".  As part of the program I'll receive eight certs (which are included in the tuition) by the time I graduate.  It's an awesome deal.

I'm really curious about this program, too.  I spoke with a recruiter last year and it sounded really promising.  Unfortunately, I've got to wait a bit yet as my wife just started her second semester of her Master's degree.

I eventually (for now) opted not to go to WGU. The reason was that I continually received stupid emails from them containing generic "about our school" type information and the recruiter I was assigned to was horrible at replying to my emails. They have some system where other people can send emails out on behalf of your recruiter (those are the more generic ones). I would receive an email from 'Robert Berry' when that happened and 'rberry@wgu' when he actually replied. He would take days or up to a week to reply to my questions (and would ignore/not answer some of them) and it basically just pissed me off. I asked several times to have a new recruiter assigned with no luck. I also wrote an email to the recruiter and program director after making the decision to not pursue anything for now and never received any sort of reply. Sad... it really did look good. I think that there are other/better options though and that's where I plan to focus.

BillV

Yeah, typically that's how it goes. Even that would have better than no response at all or ignoring some questions rather than others. It's too important of a decision to just jump into it.

For me the real question is if an institutions degree is going to have value in the real world. Is a potential employer going to look at as a plus or will they think its just a diploma mill. One nice thing about UAT is that is is recognized by the NSA. At least that's something you can mention in an interview.  If your research leads you to believe WGU will have the same credibility, well then save the money and go with them.  As far as who might have a slightly better program, well I wouldnt worry too much about it because in reality you are going to  have to teach yourself most of this stuff anyway. I mean if you want to take it to a deeper level.