Why postgraduate study

Webinar: Postgraduate Business Options

Presented by Samantha Nugent, Marketing Officer.
Featuring Sara Denize, Associate Dean (Education)

What are my postgraduate study options?

Sam Nugent
So, to get started, we'll chat a little bit about all of our postgraduate courses. A question we get asked a lot is, "What course do you think I should study?" Or "What's the difference between an MBA?" or one of our specialist programs.

Sam Nugent
So, I guess to give a brief overview. We've got two MBA programs that we split into one group, and then the other group being our specialist courses. So, our MBA, we've got two MBAs, we've got the Executive MBA and our standard MBA. So, our standard MBA is made up of 16 subjects, the first six subjects are core subjects. So, you'll learn really the pillars of how business works. So accounting, management, economics, and so on and so forth, to really get an understanding of how business works. And with the remaining 10 subjects, you will get to pick either a major, and a sub major, or some electives or a couple of sub majors, it's entirely up to you and where your interests lie, but you can see that there's really half a page of majors available there. So, it really just depends on what your interests are in. So, you could do a major in HR, and then if you're interested in IT, and an IT sub major, for example, so that you're getting that, that blend, or yeah, it's very flexible and entirely up to you.

01:34
Our Executive MBA we're really excited about. It's a new program that launched halfway through last year. So, this program is designed for professionals that have at least six years managerial work experience, and how this program works is it's also split up into core subjects, and then what we call streams, as well as electives. But the core subjects are really focused on while they do cover all the foundation areas of business, they will really apply that information such as accounting, and how you would then make managerial decisions with accounting in mind, and less. So, how accounting works, even though that's briefly covered. And then there are three streams within the executive MBA that you can see. So, there's the corporate transformation stream, which has a big focus on change management, and not just how to handle change management, but then how to actually execute it into a business as well as our entrepreneurship stream. So, if you have a business idea, we encourage you to bring this forward to the program. And you'll actually use your real-life business model to apply to this entrepreneurship stream. So, it's very hands on, especially with your own business, and then the indigenous nation building stream, which covers management from an indigenous perspective, which was really interesting.

03:01
So, did you want to talk through if you have anything to add to our programs?

03:06
Yeah, I think a question we get a lot of Sam is, "Well, should I do an MBA or an executive MBA? And how do I make that decision?", and I'll talk about the specialist programs and in a moment we get to them but, I think if you've done a non-business undergraduate degree, and you're or you're coming from a non you're working in, say engineering or nursing, the MBA is the program for you is the Generalist Business Program.

03:35
The real strength of the Master of Business Administration, it allows you to get that general business information in the core subjects and the in the six core subjects. But then it gives you plenty of space to focus in on one or two key areas which might reflect the industry that you want to work in or might reflect a specific skill set that you'd like to develop. And I think it really brings together the best of both worlds for those that don't have an undergraduate business qualification. It's it's a great program with heaps of flexibility, which will enable you to create a career pathway for yourself. It's very much designed as an early and mid-career program, whereas the EMBA, is very much designed for someone who's wanting to take the next step to senior levels in their career. And they will have been working for some time and in management roles and want to move or advanced, potentially that sort of high, mid high mid middle management or C suite of positions. And they're designed in different ways to support different types of where people are at with their careers. And they're both very career focused programs but they represent different sorts of positioning. So, I think the NBA is really be good for someone who's maybe got a professional qualification in a another domain, who now whatever now moving into management, whereas someone who's already in management and wants to go the next levels would be the executive MBA.

05:14
Yeah, I completely agree. Thank you for that.

05:18
So, if you wouldn't mind just talking through, we have a whole suite of Specialist Programs.

05:23
Yeah.

05:24
But just really explaining how they work. And just a couple of them maybe?

05:28
Yeah, okay. So, the next question we get a lot is, Well, "Should I do a Specialist Degree? Or should I do an MBA with a Specialisation?", And my answer to you is, if you're really you know, the direction of your career, and you're very clear that you're going to be in marketing or accounting and that's the sort of professional direction that you are absolutely going forward, then I would definitely say do the deep dive in a Specialist Program.

05:59
What a Specialist Program does is it, it takes you deep into the knowledge and skills for that area of specialisation. So, if you're already working in marketing, for example, as a marketing officer, and you wanted to advance to a marketing manager or looking at senior management in marketing, then you would definitely do a Master of Marketing rather than an MBA per se, with a specialisation in marketing. So, these, that's why you would choose a specialist program.

06:28
If you've done an undergraduate degree in business, and you're wanting to add another specialisation to your portfolio, so you did an Undergraduate Degree in Accounting, and you find you're now working in banks, and you really need some finance background, then you would do the Master of Finance, and add that to your portfolio. So, if you know the career direction, choose this now.

06:50
Some of the exciting things that I think, well, they're all great programs, but and I can tell you 1001 reasons why you should choose each of them. But I'm going to pick some real, really, I think, really important areas for you to consider at the moment: Supply Chain Management. The world has changed dramatically. And if you're looking for a new career, as you couldn't, you could hardly go past supply chain. There's such a shortage of people with supply chain specialists, specialist knowledge, looking at logistics, looking at the kind of data and analytics and planning skills that come with the fully accredited Supply Chain Program. You'll notice that in that there's been a huge growth in job opportunities and Human Resource management, so another fully accredited program.

07:42
I'm excited about Behavioural Economics. It's a relatively new program that we launched just on 18 months ago. And it represents a new way of thinking about behaviour, individual and corporate behaviour and decision making. And it really is being used by governments and large organisations to solve very specific thorny problems.

08:05
I'm excited about Event Management, our program and event management's just really looking at how we respond to and do things very differently in the context of a global marketplace for events that's transformed massively with the increase in virtual events happening. So, there's a whole new skill set that we're developing in that program, and our graduates are really sought after by employers in that sector.

08:32
 Another thing I'll mention about the courses as well, that I get asked quite often is you don't need any prior knowledge. So, if you're currently working in an area, and you're looking to go into Marketing, or HR, for example, but you've never studied them, and you have no work experience, that's completely fine. You, we start from the ground up with information. So definitely not something to worry about. There's no pre bridging courses or anything like that you'll that you'll need to do you can come straight in and essentially learn from the ground up. And people often find that even if they don't know much about the area, they've never studied it, there's so much they can draw from their either past studies or work experience into the course, much more familiar than they initially thought.

09:17
And we've got a plan for helping support you through to the masters that you want that your objective is. So, there's 1001 pathways into our programs.

09:27
Absolutely.

09:29
Sorry, the big question that I know that you are facing a lot at the moment, is because of COVID restrictions, there's been a lot of changes over the last couple of years. We were predominantly a face-to-face University or an on-campus University. And there's been a big shift and a lot of ambiguity around what teaching involves.

09:51
Can you chat to maybe, how some of the subjects being run and maybe, what the future looks like for the Business School?

09:57
 Going forward in postgraduate space, we very much seeing that our postgraduate students want to have the flexibility of a mix of subjects, some on campus, face to face so that they can build networks and so forth and other subjects where they can manage their life, but work life balance and study life balance a little bit more effectively.

10:21
We're seeing that our postgraduate students are choosing a portfolio of online and on campus. What we're doing is developing individual plans for each of our courses so that we can tell you what you can expect for the NBA or the Executive MBA or the Master of Finance. And the faculty are working on those at the moment for spring, for next session. There'll be will absolutely be a mix of on campus and online classes and options available. We're still in that phase where more of the activities will be online, simply because we know that many of our students are actually grappling with really complex contexts at home, and still looking after and caring for vulnerable people. And so, we're trying to make sure that as we get through the last, the tail end of this, this pandemic, that we're still continuing to provide the support we need.

11:18
We expect that next year, there'll be a lot more on campus and a lot more clarity about each of the different programs. But if you've got a specific program in mind, I think it's probably we can answer the question for that program. It's hard to generalise at this point, Sam, as you know.

11:36
So, "What does it mean in terms of in terms of learning?",

11:39
Well, we do use, we obviously will continue to have face to face activities, they are a big part and if we're not able to offer all of the subjects, we'll certainly be offering some subjects on campus in the normal kind of delivery format, which was typically a seminar for a postgraduate course. But we will offer some classes in a live zoom session and we'll we will be encouraging you to turn your cameras on and talk to us and be part of the conversation. And I think this is really important our employee groups that we're working with the saying that this is the norm for business. This is the way actually businesses are operating much more with a lot more interaction by teams and zoom and so we're really happy that we're able to provide an experience for our students in that context as well. To build team-based skills in virtual settings as well as face to face settings.

12:35
We will create a wide range of networking and extracurricular opportunities and I've got to say I've worked at a number of Universities in Sydney at the moment. And our extra-curricular portfolio of resources that are available to all of our students, postgraduate students specifically, exceptional with everything from writing essays, language support, through to helping you prepare for job interviews, resume writing, repositioning your resume redesigning your career, at really important workshops and co-curricular opportunities. There's also a huge range of internship opportunities that are available for our postgraduate students as well.

13:21
So, within our master’s Programs we have built nested within them, we have a graduate certificate in each of our courses, our Graduate Diploma in all of our courses besides Behavioural Economics, and Professional Accounting, and then their master's and extension masters for a few of our courses.

13:41
So, the reason we highlight this is because, in order to study a postgraduate degree, you don't have to have an undergraduate degree, which is a question that we ask a lot and definitely want to address as well. So, if you have four years of full time or equivalent work experience, you're eligible to apply for our graduate certificate programs. Now, there's, as I said, a nested within the within the masters and a made up of the first 24 credit points. So, if you enter via a graduate certificate, it doesn't take any more time or you're not repeating any more subjects or cost anymore, and you are sitting in classes with those doing anyone from the graduate certificate through to the extension masters as well. It's simply an admission pathway. So, it's definitely worth considering if you don't have an undergraduate degree, we really encourage you to reach out to myself or submit an application and just demonstrate that through your resume.

14:43
So... sorry, assessments. People want to know if there's group work or is it exams or what's your...

14:52
It's all of the above, but what we try to do is offer in any degree a mix of individual assessment tasks, a mix of tasks that are written and verbally presented, a mix of group and individual work. And we have some exams. Certain disciplines tend to have certain specific assessment modes. For example, the accounting profession do require that we have particular types of assessments as part of the professional accreditation requirements for that course.

15:28
 So, there are some differences by degree, but all of the above, assessments tend to be the beginning of the session, something in the middle and something at the end of a session in a subject. Some subjects have one big assessment, which will be a major project. So for example, internships, and there's a lot of our capstone courses have a major piece of assessment that you would do. Often, if it's a really big project, you would do that with a with a group. But a lot of the assessments are also individual assessments. So, it's a range.

16:07
Through a rule of thumb, we typically say it's about an hour and a half of study time per hour of contact time. That's the general rule of thumb. But if you're working in finance, and you're coming to do a Master of Finance. I mean, really, there's a good chance that you won't need to study as much for the subjects that you have a strong affiliation with. And for myself, for a subject I did with Usara, I hadn't done a lot of that analytical piece before. So, it was definitely a lot longer than that. So, it really does depend on your background. But can you offer any advice around that?

16:46
I guess the question is, "How much should you do in your first session of study?"

16:52
 If you're working full time, I would absolutely say for your first session of study, if you're able to, to just take a part time load, that would be the right thing to do. So, take one or two subjects in your first session and if you're an international student, you will be studying full time and you'll need to take four subjects in each half year. Four subjects as a full-time load, so it's equivalent to working full time except it might not take you that amount of time. If you've got some background, or you're working in that area, as you said, Sam,

17:25
So, if you are not an international student, and you have no visa requirements, you can choose anywhere between one and four subjects, as Sara said, so the difference between core and elective subjects. Sarah, can you walk us through that, please. So, what we do is we identify the things that we think are essential for every student to know if they're going to graduate with a particular course, what we do is we say these courses, these subjects are absolutely essential for you to graduate with an MBA or a master's in finance. And those subjects that we call core are often linked to specific professional requirements, or specific knowledge that has been demonstrated to be really important with that particular degree. And then what we do is we introduce what we call electives. And there where students can have a bit more free choice and a bit of flexibility to tailor their particular course, to their specific learning needs. So, for example, in the Master of Marketing,

17:40
So, the difference between core and elective subjects. Sarah, can you walk us through that, please.

17:42
So, what we do, is we identify the things that we think are essential for every student to know if they're going to graduate with a particular course, what we do is we say these courses, these subjects are absolutely essential for you to graduate with an MBA or a Master's in Finance. And those subjects that we call core are often linked to specific professional requirements, or specific knowledge that has been demonstrated to be really important with that particular degree. And then what we do is we introduce what we call electives, and there where students can have a bit more free choice and a bit of flexibility to tailor their particular course, to their specific learning needs.

18:25
So, for example, in the Master of Marketing. We've got quite a lot of electives. There’re some standard core subjects that are essential, but there's a lot of opportunity for choice and flexibility. And this is because if you've done a degree in marketing, you can go into so many different careers, very, very different careers, and you get to choose the electives that will suit your career plans. In the MBA, as we've said, the six core subjects that cover all of the general business knowledge that you must have to bring you up to appropriate skill levels in a business management job. And then we have got lots of electives, for flexibility.

19:11
Whereas in the Master of Professional Accounting, there's really no electives at all. It's all core unless you do the extension program and then you can choose for electors.

19:20
And

19:21
So, I'll now walk everyone through actually recognition of prior learning. Sorry we'll talk about recognition of prior learning first. We've had a few phase questions, and we will move on to that shortly.

19:33
So, recognition of prior learning will really depend on the program that you're applying for. So, you can see that the more subjects that you're looking to complete, the more recognition of prior learning that you can obtain. How this works is it has to be equivalent to the subject that you're looking to receive credit recognition for. So, in your undergraduate if you're doing an MBA for example, and in your undergraduate degree, you've done an accounting course subject, and it's within a 10-year timeframe, you can absolutely apply for recognition of prior learning. For example, the accounting course object within the MBA. So, it really works as one for one. So, what you need to do is obtain subject outlines for your past studies and compare them to the subjects that you're looking to receive credit for. And then you can submit that to our recognition of prior learning team, and they'll assess that. But it does have to be within a 10-year timeframe. And you can see generally what the possible exemptions are based on what course you're looking to apply for.

20:39
So, our fee calculator, it can be a little bit difficult to work. But here's really a step by step. So how it works is you need to put in either postgraduate domestic or postgraduate International, the fee year, so the year in which you're looking to study and the cobalt year, they're looking at the year in which you're looking to commence and then Coursera being business and then you have to type in the full program name. So, you know Master of Marketing or so on and so forth, is no abbreviations unfortunately. And then when you search that up, so for example, for the Master of Business Administration, this is what would come up. So how it works is the MBA is made up of 96 credit points in total. So, for all 16 subjects and each credit point is $703. So, for the total cost of the program, it will be 67,488, not including some student service fees, which are about 75 to $140 a year, which are added on. That how you would work it out per credit point or per subject would be, so in most of our postgraduate programs are subject is worth six credit points, but it can be three or 12. So you would need to have a look at the handbook for how the subjects are credited there. So, you would simply times 703 If you're doing the MBA by six, which would give you the amount per subject.

22:15
So how things work is, if you are enrolling in two subjects, you'll be upon enrolling, you'll then receive an E-invoice through to your student email just for those two subjects that you're enrolling in. So, you're not charged the full course fees upfront. It's simply for what you're enrolling in for that session. And if you receive recognition of prior learning, then of course, the amount of credit points that have been deducted through RPL will be taken off the final amount.

22:45
Things I would add is if you're an Australian domestic student, all of our postgraduate courses attract a fee help. I think that's mentioned on your slide there saying

22:54
Yes

22:55
So that can really help with budgeting for international students. I think the big thing to remember is you only pay for what you're studying this current session. So, we don't make you pay up front like they do in Europe, where you have to pay for the whole course upfront the whole year. So, it's a sort of pay as you go model and for fee help.

23:14
So, if you are an Australian citizen, and you haven't obtained over $120,000 in student debt, then how it works is when you go to enrol in your subjects, that all happens automatically within the University. And it does work the same as a HECS debt, so payments are deferred. And then you repay those based on a threshold of what you earn. So, we can send you more information on that as well.

23:42
So, moving on now, to "What your year will look like,"

23:46
What the year looks like, so most of our postgraduate courses that we offer in three sessions, so an Autumn session, which runs from sort of mid-February, through to the end of May, June, mid-June, and then a Spring Session that runs through from sort of August through to November. And then we do have some subjects available over Summer. But most mostly most of the classes are available in Spring and Autumn and you can choose if you want to participate in a Summer Session to advance your degree more quickly, or to take that session off. As I've mentioned earlier, if you're working full time, we definitely suggest that you do a couple of subjects each session and maybe so that would be four subjects, two an Autumn, two in Spring and then maybe pick up one subject in Summer.

24:44
For an international student, you would normally do four subjects in Autumn and four subjects in Spring and a lot of our international students take Summer off and take advantage of that the work opportunities that are available to them in Australia over the Summer vacation period. Others of our international students tend to sometimes take a lighter session and one of the Autumn and Spring and add in one or two subjects in Summer, to keep their full-time length. As an international student, you need to complete eight subjects a year. But that's a calendar year, not an academic year.

25:23
The Executive MBA and the Master of Behavioural Economics is on a bit of a different calendar, and we've done this so that students can do one subject at a time basically, and so they will do a six, six credit points at a time. So, you'll do a total of six subjects, the equivalent of six, six credit points subjects a year, but you'll spread that over as shorter, more intense study sessions, and you've studied and one of those six session blocks. And that means you've kind of focused for us for six weeks.

26:02
Yeah,

26:03
but then you're only doing one thing.

26:06
And another thing I would note is just the census dates. So, these dates is when you become financially liable for the subjects that you've enrolled in so you do have up until this date. So, if you start, if you have the flexibility in order to choose how many subjects you wish to enrol in, and you've picked three, and maybe it's a bit intense, you do, you can drop down back to 2 or, or so on and so forth. But you just need to make sure that you're checking the census date.

26:36
So, it's the date, which once you've definitely committed to doing the subject, and it's the date at which you're not only financially liable, but also academically liable. So, if you withdraw after the census date, it will show on your academic record.

26:53
Touching on sorry, you mentioned before, all the great resources we have through the University, and UTS Careers where people can find support. Another piece I would mention is prior to session commencing you would have seen on the academic date, just then we've had a week of orientation. If you haven't studied in some time or haven't studied at a university before or even if you're coming through from undergrad to post grad, we highly recommend registering for all of our orientation activities. They'll walk you through how to use the University campus tours so it can be a really great opportunity to sort of understand and really prepare yourself for the session ahead. Sarah, do you mind touching on either any of our support services or the global alumni network? I know that that's a big case for a lot of people.

27:46
Look, first of all, absolutely join the Postgraduate Business Society. It's a great networking tool and there's a very active group of postgraduate students who lead that society we definitely encourage you to get involved. There are a range of scholarships that are available that Sam can provide you specific information about those. It does depend on course; on what course you are and in if your domestic and international student. There's a whole raft of different sorts of scholarships. So that's a one-on-one type of question.

28:24
The UK support services are amazing. So, there's what we call UTS helps and essentially, it has been a while that since you studied and I remember the first time I went back to studying after being away for a long time, I hadn't thought about how to write an exam. And that helps services can help you think through how to write an exam, if you go to the library, they have absolutely amazing support. The big thing that a lot of students mentioned to me is they read the assignment description and they just have no idea what like the lecture is even talking about. And they've asked the lecturer what that means, and they don't feel like they understand any better. The library's amazing. They'll sit down and go through the assignment question with you and help you understand the question and help you find the types of resources that you need. There's a huge array of enormously well-connected alumni who are part of and continuing part of the learning experience at UTS. So, there'll be opportunities for you to join LinkedIn groups to join alumni networks, to meet our alumni and to network with those groups.

29:39
I just see there's a question that's popped up about opportunities to network with students and industry partners. Absolutely. You will see this in every one of our courses.

29:50
 A lot of the ways that we get you to do this is actually to do real projects to do projects that are actually provided by employers and our industry partners who are coming into the classroom to code deliver our curriculum. But there are a range of networking events. But we've always had a really strong focus on making sure that our postgraduate students are able to access our research and industry research seminars and our sort of master classes and things like that. So, there's a wide range of networking opportunities that happened with our academy as it were, and the way they interact with our industry partners. If you are interested in those sorts of networking opportunities, reach out to the course director, the program, what we call someone's program director, the director for the NBA or the director for the Master Professional Accounting, or the Director for the Master of Finance, and you say you want to come to the industry research events. And you'll there's literally this on every week at one our other part of the Business School.

30:55
So, for our last most frequently asked question, I'll walk through domestic applications. To apply as a postgraduate domestic student is free. You apply directly to the university, and you'll need three main pieces of information in order to fully submit your application. So, you will need an up-to-date resume, I typically recommend to people what your LinkedIn page looks like is really perfect, and outline of your work history to show how long you've been in the workforce. Any transcripts or certificates or test hammers or anything that you can obtain, as well. So, your educational history is really important to submit as well. And then what we call a statement of service. So, we have a template for this that you can find on the applications page and one that we can also send out if that's required. It's not a letter of recommendation, it's a just a page, a one pager that really, you get a manager or if you own your own business and accountant to sign just to state how long you've been in your current role. So, you don't need to have this signed for every single role you've ever been in just for your current role.

32:11
If you aren't looking to advise your work, that you're going back to study, that's completely fine. You can have a justice of the peace sign or someone from the post office, sign your resume as a stack deck instead. So, there are a couple of different options there. And then you just upload these documents onto our application portal. And they are submitted to our admissions team. The turnaround time is roughly two to three weeks when it's really busy, but otherwise, much shorter than that. So, it's a very quick process. It's all done online. And it's free.

32:48
If you have any questions or you would like to set up a call with myself or someone on my team, you can email: business@uts.edu.au. It comes straight through to myself. So please do reach out if we can help with anything at all. And if you just want to have a look at what the application process looks like or looking to apply, or really anything that we've spoken about today, you can access it all via PG business uts.edu.au.

33:14
Thank you, Sara so much for your expertise. We really appreciate it. Not every day that we've got Associate Dean's jumping on webinars.

33:23
So yeah, my pleasure. It's great to meet you all. I look forward to seeing you on campus at some point.