I started working at ITT after leaving GVSU. ITT offered me the opportunity to teach the entire Software Application Programming (SAP) curriculum each quarter, an opportunity that GVSU did not offer. ITT philosophy was to hire instructors that can do what they teach.

At that time the ITT students expressed to me that they felt special as they had passed the entrance or placement exams that allowed them to be accepted into the SAP program. There seemed to be many that wanted to be in our program and that had to settle for something less. After a short time I heard comments from the other employees and students that I was the SAP program in Grand Rapids. I taught the courses and the program chair ran interference to clear my way so I could change Grand Rapids. Later as ITT's Mid West representative of the curriculum committee I ran prototype classes that pushed the limits of the courses to make contract programmers out of our students. There was a student that transfer out west and the next term transferred back to Grand Rapids to complete his training.

My goal was to show each student how to be a winner, a sought after graduate from an excellent technical school. I wanted to build a reputation for ITT in Grand Rapids that the rest of the ITT system would want to follow. At the end of the first few graduating classes we had success stories in the market. We started to make a difference. I was told that Ferris State University was accepting our courses for credit, and I do not know if that was true. We were teaching students to be winners and they were making us winners.

Then ITT had a corporate leadership change and the company was redefined around the summer of 2005. Key players were retiring like Charles Calvey, PhD. Chair, School of Information Technology and the associate Dean, Frederick Gnich. I had previously started teaching a class the C++I course and left ITT after I graded their capstone course.

Note: A Class at ITT is a group of students chasing the same curriculum. They have the advantage over other institutions of learning by elimination of redundancy of material as each course adds just what is needed to efficiently progress forward. So classes are very much like high school classes.

There was on PBS Frontline (wcmu-26 channel 14.1) at 9:00 P.M. Tuesday 5/4/2010 a special show called College INC. I found it interesting.


GE127 College Mathematics I: This class will include, but is not limited to, the following concepts: polynomial and radical equations, linear functions and their graphics, systems of linear equations, functions and their properties and triangles and trigonometric functions. Activities will include solving problems and using appropriate technological tools.
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GE192 College Mathematics II: This class will include, but is not limited to, the following concepts: exponential and logarithmic equations and functions, graphs of trigonometric function, trigonometric equations, polar coordinates, oblique triangles, vectors and sequences.
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GE253 Physics: Students in this course study the concepts of mechanical physics. Laboratory projects demonstrate the theory.
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IT104 Introduction to Computer Programming: This course serves as a foundation for understanding the logical function and process of computer programming in a given language environment. Basic computer programming and skills on logic and syntax will be covered. Coding convention and procedures will be discussed relevant to the given programming language environment (VB and VB .net)
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IT106 Programming in C++ I: Students will write, enter, run and debug programs using the C++ language. Topics include simple C++ operations, functions, procedures, and data operations.
Extended the class to include: The gang of 4 book and MVC are introduced along with gVim as a programmable editor.
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IT204 Scripting and Web Authoring I: Students we introduced to HTML and other markup language(s) or scripting/Web authoring tools. Project assignments include the development of simple interactive applications using each of the tools.
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IT217 Programming in C++ II: This course is a continuation of the preceding C++ course (IT106). Students will examine concepts of scope, arrays, strings, file I/O algorithms and data structures. Basic object-oriented programming will be presented.
Extended the class to include: Other languages like wxPython are introduced.
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IT218 Programming in JAVA I: IT218 Programming in JAVA I Students will be introduced to the essential concepts and programming elements of the JAVA language. Topics include Internet concepts, basic language concepts (declaring and evaluating data, statements, expressions control flow and input), development environments, classes and objects and creation of applets.
Extended the class to include: programmable development environments and appropriate scripts like: gVim, kedit, and other IDE environments like Eclipse with an introduction to UML, jUnit, and Ant. PostgreSQL is introduced and the student installs the database on their hard drives.
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IT219 Programming in JAVA II: This course covers the essentials of applet programming (URL, audio, image, test, animation), error handling, debugging, threads and the client/server environment. Creation of application programs through projects a requirement.
Extended the class to include: The class furthered their study of PostgreSQL connected to JAVA with dynamic data dictionary concepts. Applications using MVC, singleton and other patterns are introduced to their project skill set. Other java tools like javadoc are introduced. Extreme programming iterations are introduced to deliver projects.
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IT305 College Mathematics III: Students in this course study the concepts of limits and differential and integral calculus in the context of practical problems.
Numerical techniques are introduced to write solutions for integration, differentiation, and algebraic solutions. Round off error and truncation error are introduced with iteration and recursive techniques to approximate solutions.
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IT306 Software Application Programming: Students will apply math skills, GUI principles and programming techniques to develop complex application software. Teamwork, project planning and implementation are the underlying criteria for this course.
Further database design techniques (ER diagrams), normalization, and foundations for an object-oriented database application using java are studied. JAVA demo examples provided in the java jdk like TableExample are reviewed.
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IT308 Software Development Capstone Project: Development of a complex software application in an area jointly agreed upon by the student as well as the faculty member. The faculty member acts more as a facilitator and project manager for his final assignment.
I used over 25 years of experience as a systems analysis and manager to model the dynamic world of application development and sales.
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IT327 Data Structures: Through exploring fundamental data structures, data manipulation techniques and algorithms necessary for good program development, students will be exposed to methods of selecting appropriate data structures to represent data with a given set of operations on that data. Topics include abstract data types, trees and graphs and their traversal, priority queues, searching and sorting, algorithm design techniques, external sorting techniques, hashing, etc.
Extend the class to include the study of the C++ STL library and the creation of library members for the students extended libraries.
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