Rick
Can you please provoide more information about - Ivy Tech ?
In India - Engineering (B.Tech) we have theory subjects like Switching Theory an Logic Design, Digital Logic Design .. etc. Also Lab covering the Basics of Digital circuits. These provoide reasonable exposure. Then one needs to parcicipate in design, developmnt and testing projects. After that one ( may be ) is likely get a feel for Logic, Signal / Data flow, architecture and can appriciate and understand the work / models built by professionls.
Opencores, advanced encrytion algorithms in VHDL are available in the web.
These will help you to build your own complex functions and systems.
GKM