Mobile App & Entertainment Development at Northwest Tech

The Program

Overview
What are you getting yourself into?
What You'll Learn
The short version: a bit of everything.
Careers
You are destined for great things.
Placement
Northwest Tech has a history of placement.
Advisory Board
A program backed by the industry's leaders

About the Program

Degree: Associates of Applied Science (Technical Certificate option available after 1^st 9 months)

Length: 1^st Year: 9 months; 2^nd Year: 9 months

Start Date: August 2011

Class Schedule: Monday - Friday or Online

Learn how to develop apps in the rapidly expanding iPhone and iPad market. The iOS architecture is one of the fastest growing technology opportunities in modern history. The training received from our Mobile App and Entertainment Development program will enable you to create apps and games for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad and to build cross-platform, mobile web-apps that will run on nearly any modern smart-phone platform including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and more.

About Northwest Tech

Northwest Kansas Technical College is the place you want to be for an affordable quality education. Our students enjoy the best of the best with smaller class sizes and a faculty with educational credentials as well as professional experiences. Our faculty and staff love what they do and look forward to sharing their passion, experiences and knowledge with you.

Build native iPhone apps from the ground up.

Courses

1^st YEAR, 1^st SEMESTER		1^st YEAR, 2^nd SEMESTER
Procedural C	3 Credits	Web Application II	3 Credits
Objective-C	3 Credits	App Development II	3 Credits
App Development I	3 Credits	Interface Oriented Design	3 Credits
Web Application I	3 Credits	iPad App Development	3 Credits
Computer Fundamental & Application	3 Credits	Software Design I	3 Credits
Total Semester Hours	15 Credits	General Education Elective (Communication)	3 Credits
		Total Semester Hours	18 Credits

2^nd YEAR, 1^st SEMESTER		2^nd YEAR, 2^nd SEMESTER
Web Application III	3 Credits	Web Application IV	4 Credits
Software Design II	3 Credits	Animation II	3 Credits
Data Management	3 Credits	Entertainment Design II	3 Credits
Animation I	3 Credits	General Education Elective	3 Credits
Entertainment Design I	3 Credits	General Education Elective	3 Credits
General Education Elective (Math)	3 Credits	Total Semester Hours	16 Credits
Total Semester Hours	18 Credits

Total Program Hours: 67 Credits

Learn how to create iPhone and iPad apps as well as cross-platform, mobile web-apps!

Mobile

Design and build apps and games from scratch for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and other iOS devices as Apple releases them.

Learn to create cross-platform, mobile web-apps that are accessed from iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian and other smart-phones.

App & Entertainment

Solve real-world problems in a variety of industries with native iOS apps and specialized web-apps.

Simplify existing processes in information gathering and management.

Use APIs to connect your app or game to existing IT and entertainment infrastructures as well as other iOS apps such as Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Music.

Design games from turn-based or real-time strategy to live action.

Get a leg up on in-app image, audio, and video manipulation.

Maybe even combine the camera, accelerometer, and gyroscope to create an augmented reality experience.

Development

Get your own apps and games on the Apple App Store.

Provision devices for a local install base to test your apps and games before and after deployment.

Integrate scalable iOS devices in to existing businesses information infrastructures.

Classic video games make great primers for the real world.

What can you do with an MAED Degree?

There are many options for Mobile App Developers:

Become part of an in-house development team for medium to enterprise businesses to create and maintain apps that are used by their employes and customers.
Join a Mobile App Development firm and build apps for customers all over the country or even around the world.
Be your own boss and develop apps for small or medium businesses as a freelance contract consultant.
Start your own label and create apps for Apple's App Store.

Lines of code in Xcode 4, the standard development environment for Mobile App Development.

Graduates of the program will be able to create apps for use in business, personal and social entertainment and communication, content consumption and casual or hard-core gaming. Completing both years will allow you to do this on both iOS and Android platforms.

Application developers may progress to a project manager or director of information systems position.

Other application developers may move on to careers in systems design or technical consulting.

Strong Web-App and Native-App Developers will be able to help companies bring their existing web-presence, infrastructure and systems into the emerging world of cloud computing.

“The demand is constant,” said Dan Gilmartin, Where's vice president of marketing. “Every company is looking for these people.”

“Almost all of our companies are looking for Android and iPhone developers,” said Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital, a Boston venture capital firm, whose portfolio includes Twitter Inc., Tumblr and OnSwipe.

“If we can find an excellent engineer, we hire him,” said Mr. Bowman. “You can't always wait for mobile experience, because you might be waiting a long time.” The mismatch has put upward pressure on wages. According to an October survey by tech job board Dice.com, about 31% of companies reported that average pay among mobile software designers and engineers increased at a higher rate than normal, mostly because of heightening competition for talent. The Dice survey said the average mobile salary last fall was about $76,000, but several companies said they pay experienced mobile developers anywhere from $90,000 to $150,000 a year.

Joe Light, The Wall Street Journal READ MORE

“Mobile app developers are in high demand right now. In fact, trying to find them is a bottleneck for companies that want to get into the mobile marketplace. The technologies are so new that there aren’t a lot of software engineers out there with mobile development experience. Also, small and mid-size businesses are looking for mobile app specialists...”

Mark Feffer, Dice News READ MORE

“CIOs are looking for innovative developers who can weave social, mobile and collaborative technology features into their designs. Some developers will be responsible for attracting new customers and generating revenue with sexy mobile apps and Web sites. Others will be hired to improve operating efficiencies by integrating content management and collaboration tools into existing technology or building mobile business applications that allow employees to share information and access data anywhere in the world.”

Cat Miller, Dice News READ MORE

Work-Ready Graduates

For the past six years, an average of 80% of our graduates have found employment or further education within a year of graduation. We are seriously committed to preparing you for the workplace!

Mobile app development is still young and changing daily. With that in mind, our App Development program at Northwest Tech was created with plenty of input and advice from the industry's leaders. The best and brightest sit on our board and will continue to guide the program as its flagship class takes on new challenges.

Our Program Advisors Include:

New Age Wireless

Sparrow Development

The People

Jeremy Skrdlant
M.S., CCNA, A+, Security+

Jeremy Skrdlant

Send me an e-mail or catch me online now:

Jeremy Skrdlant has worked on everything from robotics to web sites. He has been coding since the mid 90s and has experience with lot of languages including C, Java, Objective C and PHP. He received his Masters degree from Fort Hays State University where he learned about GUI design, html with CSS, JavaScript, and Photoshop. During this time he was also the main web administrator at Northwest Tech along with administrating the Moodle LMS system.

His bachelor degree in Computer Science came from Kansas State University. There he worked on the vision system of a robot that had to map out rooms using only a camera. He also worked on database systems and artificial intelligence. These included modding a Linux game with a knowledge base AI rather than the minimax algorithm that was in it.

What's Included

Equipment
Gadgets are the status quo around here.
Cost
Find out what your wallet is in for.
Books
Yes, we still use textbooks.

Learning On Campus

If you are going through the program on-campus, you will need:

One iPad ($499) and

One Apple Developer Membership ($99 annually)

Learning Online

If you are taking our mobile app classes online, you will need:

One iPad ($499)

One Apple Developer Membership ($99 annually) and

One Macintosh Computer with an Intel^TM processor capable of running Apple's latest version of OS X.

All the equipment you will need to jump in with mobile app development.

ABOVE, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: An iPod Touch, an iPad, and a MacBook Pro.

Year	Length & Credit Hrs.	Tuition*	App Fee¹	Fees¹	Books, Supplies (Estimated)	Total Cost
Mobile App & Entertainment Development I*	9 mo/33 cr hrs	$6,534	$25	$150	$1,700	$8,409.00
Mobile App & Entertainment Development II*	9 mo/34 cr hrs	$6,732	$25	$150	$1,200	$8,107.00

* Specialized program tuition rate of $198 per credit hour

¹ These fees are required & not refundable. (Includes: Application, Lab, Technology, Activity, Career Services and Assessment Fees)

SPECIAL NOTE: All of the above cost figures are subject to change.

Books You Will Need:

EBook I (Procedural C) (Publisher: Apress) (ISBN: 978-1-4302-1809-8)

Book II (Objective C) (Publisher: Apress) (ISBN: 978-1-4302-1815-9)

Book III (Application Development I) (Publisher: Apress) (ISBN: 978-1-4302-3605-4)

Book IV (Web Apps I) (Publisher: Apress) (ISBN: 978-0-470-54070-1)

MOBILE APP & ENTERTAINMENT DEVELOPMENT at NORTHWEST TECH

The Program

Overview

What You'll Learn

Careers

Placement

Advisory Board

About the Program

About Northwest Tech

Courses

Learn how to create iPhone and iPad apps as well as cross-platform, mobile web-apps!

Mobile

App & Entertainment

Development

What can you do with an MAED Degree?

Work-Ready Graduates

Our Program Advisors Include:

The People

Jeremy Skrdlant

Jeremy Skrdlant

What's Included

Equipment

Cost

Books

Learning On Campus

Learning Online

Books You Will Need:

Make It Happen!

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