Whoa! Before you get suckered into one of those over priced online universities, seriously consider how much money you can save by going to school at a local or state university. Most local schools now offer distance learning as an option for some or all their courses.

Lastly, if you must go with an online university, pick one that is regionally accredited and that employers will recognize. For example, in technology this would be Devry’s. AIU looks like a diploma mill, as was a specific response my brother got during an interview for his last job. He chose AIU because he worked for AIU at the time, but now regrets it.

Bottom line: pick a school that is affordable and recognized by employers in your field.

UPDATE I: Sorry, didn’t answer your question. As for getting the second degree for Network Security specializations, you should talk to AIU directly. Only AIU can dictate if they’ll let you take additional classes to pass for another degree. Some schools will let you do this, but this is in no way a standard policy. Private schools tend to be pricier, as they are “for profit”, so there’s a bit of conflict of interest there.

UPDATE II: Student Trap. Hehe! Article below:

http://clatl.com/atlanta/the-student-trap/Content?oid=1268448

And yet another dissident website:

http://www.aiutruth.com/Home_Page.html

BTW, I have no college degree or certs, but I’m doing well in computer/information systems and am well on my way to becoming a health information systems applications analyst. Currently, I’m bringing in $48k gross, although last year I brought in over $54k gross (this is decent to good in the Portland, Oregon market). My point is… I’m making the same or more than folks that have a college degree that I work with. You should use your education wisely and pick one that pays good, but ultimately do you YOU LIKE! I like what I do and I’m good at it, so maybe I’m one of the exceptions.

Yes, sounds like it. It is often the case that for a Computer Science degree you have the first 2 years a lot of general math, technology, electronic material and start to divide later on into a specific field.

Rather than striving for a double major I would ask myself, what is the job title you are more likely to enjoy. The first major (Programming) will give you the skills to write software, you will be able to work as a software engineer and create new exciting sofware (be it web base, desktop apps, or server side code). The second specialication is more focused on being a network specialist, you will not be able to write code but you will manage networks. You basically will become a network/server administrator. Maybe from my personal experience, if you like to do business, meaning you enjoy how people sell/buy products, are interested in how marketing/sales teams get their job done and would like to help them in this process, like I do, choose Programming. You will be much closer associated to the business division than if you would support the hardware (servers/network).

I hope this helps.

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Sorry, just wanted to enhance my post a bit after reading “PE2008″ answer. He has a point. Private for profit institutions, especially the ones doing only “online” degrees have been critized heavily lately. Maybe there are other universities that you are interested too. A friend told me about this website called top-us-colleges.com that lets you search colleges by a whole bunch of different attributes, maybe you can check it out.