Virginia Tech and Northern Virginia Community College are making it easier for NOVA students to pursue a bachelor's in cybersecurity at the state university.
Under an agreement announced Monday, NOVA students pursuing an associate degree in information technology or business administration will now have a guided path to transfer to Virginia Tech to pursue the department of business information technology's cybersecurity management and analytics (BIT-Cyber) bachelor’s degree.
This is the first time Virginia Tech has opened up a four-year degree to students who will never attend class at the university's Blacksburg flagship, according to the announcement. The two higher ed institutions signed the formal partnership agreement in July after enrolling a pilot cohort of students for the the fall 2020 semester.
After completing their associate degree, NOVA students can now transfer to Virginia Tech's Falls Church campus and complete the cybersecurity bachelor's degree in two years. The first cohort of 30 NOVA transfer students enrolled in the BIT-Cyber program will graduate in the spring of 2022, said Robin Russell, head of the business information technology department at Virginia Tech.
“This transfer pipeline aims to fulfill the region’s need for diverse technology talent by enabling our students to continue their education and earn a degree from Virginia Tech while staying close to home,” Anne Kress, NOVA’s president, said in a statement.
The program's students also must meet 300 hours of work-based experience through the program, which connects them with internships, networking and career opportunities to prepare for the local IT workforce.
“Placing cyber students in the D.C. metro area to study, intern, and interact with industry and government is essential to meeting the heightened security needs of the nation and ensuring a fully functioning economy,” Russell said in a statement.
Virginia Tech's membership with the Greater Washington Partnership's Capital CoLab, the Northern Virginia Chamber's Washington D.C. Apprenticeship Network and regional tech councils NVTC and RVA Tech will provide direct relationships with companies looking to hire students, Russell said.
So far, the following companies have offered internships to BIT-Cyber students, Russell added: Deloitte, Capital One, KPMG, and investment management firm Barings in the financial industry; federally-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac; federal research nonprofit The Mitre Corp.; and Cisco and IBM in the technology space.
This story has been updated.
