University Tution Fees [Infographic]

Interesting infographic on University tution fees.


Source: NonProfitCollegesOnline.com

Thanks for the link Heidi.

Relationship between core curriculum and college preparedness [infographic]

An interesting infographic from the Best College Review site which argues that a "Common core curriculum is not the solution to closing the achievement gap".

Some politicians here in the UK believe that the educations standards here have gone down and that we should look at systems followed by other countries.

What do you think?


Source: Best College Reviews

Another University, another graduation

Just received an email recently about the Coventry University graduation ceremony in July. This time I will not be one of the spectators up on the stage but rather, one of the graduates. I will be receiving my Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Professional Practice.

This will the 5th University I am graduating from. The first was Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry in Himachal Pradesh, India. The second was University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I then became a Certified E-Commerce Professional from Informatics, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The last university I studied in before Coventry univ. was the University of Warwick.

It was not part of a plan - it just happened. Wonder what's next?

Coventry University #3 in the UK for Marketing

Based on the subject ranking for Business School subjects in the 2012 NSS, our department (Marketing) has been ranked 3rd in the UK.

Coventry University's score: 95%
Sector average score (Overall Satisfaction): 81%
Coventry’s ranking position: 3
No. of institutions with published NSS results: 52

Note: This includes all institutions who have published NSS results for each subject, which may include FE colleges and university colleges as well as universities

Good Universities or Good Students?

Are the top ranked universities the best places to study or do research?

I ask this because after talking to a number of PhD students studying in the UK, it appears that doctoral researchers in lower ranked Universities get more help and are often better supervised than students in some of the so called "top ranked" universities.

For example, at one doctoral conference I met this brilliant chap who was presenting a poster. He was doing his PhD in one of the "top ranked" Universities in the UK and his supervisor is a leading academics in the field of Marketing. Of course I asked how it was like being supervised by the renowned Professor. Imagine my surprise when I learnt that he had met his supervisor only TWICE ever since he started his PhD and he was already in his second year. And he is not the only one. I know of several guys in top universities narrating their frustration with the lack of good supervision and how their supervisors had sat on their drafts/ reports for months without providing any feedback.

I know that PhD students are supposed to be independent and that these Professors are really busy but I feel that this is very irresponsible - besides carrying out ground breaking research, they are supposed to supervise their students as well. That's why they are paid such huge salaries.Sometimes it appears that the only time the supervisors show some interest is when the students submit journal papers for publication as their names are also included (sometimes as the lead author).

However, despite the quality of supervision (or lack of) these students go on to complete their research and amazingly even do it within the stipulated 3 years + or - a few months. I attribute this to the fact that the students were themselves high achievers, independent and hard working in the first place.

Of course I cannot deny that these top ranked Universities have excellent facilities and offer all kinds of opportunities to the students - opportunities not available to students in lower ranked (and lower funded) universities. However, these top universities put up such high selection criteria and select only the cream of the applicants. In other words Top universities attract Top students and of course, their output is excellent as well.

My experiences were a bit different, I had two excellent supervisors and I could fix an appointment to meet them whenever I wanted to even though they were quite busy and I actually kind of liked being independent in the first place. One of my supervisors went through the final draft of my thesis in just one week and there were comments on almost every page. It is no wonder that he is one of the youngest Professors in Warwick.

If you are currently doing your PhD or have recently completed it, I would love to hear your experiences. Did you receive the level of supervision which you had expected when you started out your PhD.

Does your first degree even matter?

I was going through the CVs of some eminent professors at the Warwick Business School and I was quite surprised when I found out that the first degree of a number of them was not business related. An excellent example is Peter Corvi who is the Associate Dean (Undergraduate Programme) and Professorial Teaching Fellow in Finance at WBS. Looking at his CV, I discovered that he has a BSc Mathematical Physics (Edinburgh), MASt Mathematics (Cambridge) and PhD Theoretical Physics (Edinburgh). And now he teaches Finance.

There are several other academics whose first degree were not business/ management related including engineering, agriculture, architecture and so on but they are all now teaching business and management related subjects in business schools.

I have a background in Forestry (BSc Forestry and MSc Forest Products) and I am now doing a PhD in Marketing looking at consumer attitudes towards blogs and sponsored posts on blogs. Like a lot of people, I was able to make this huge move only though my MBA. IN my MBA class, we had people from all educational backgrounds, including Islamic studies, engineering and even a medical doctor.

I am getting back in touch with a lot of my old University mates via Facebook and was not really surprised when I found out that many of them were now working and doing really well in fields other than Forestry or Horticulture all around the World including banking, insurance and consulting.

My previous educational background has not hampered me in moving to the field of Marketing in any way. In fact it has made my experience richer.