Well for people who didn't work hard in poly like me, the most popular choice would be SIM. It doesn't matter how much your gpa in poly is whether it's 1.5gpa or 3.5gpa as long as you don't qualify for any big 4 local universities, the next best choice would probably be SIM. Of course there are other private universities like Kaplan or MDIS etc but I'm not going to go into that.
Here comes the most popular question of all time.
I'm going to take only their business management degree as a comparison because that's what I want to study. This is all solely based on my opinion so don't bash me for it. Now lets look at a couple of factors.
Recognition
Based on what I've read in forums and stuff I wouldn't say any of these two universities give you any edge in finding a job in future because most employers prefer local uni graduates so I suppose this is a draw. Finding a job in the future armed with only a private degree is really going to be hard and the difference between these two universities is really almost negligible and it boils down to the preference of your employer. If your employer is a UOL graduate then he/she probably wants to hire another UOL graduate and vice versa. Of course this might not be true but it's probably human nature to associate better with someone who came from the "same" school as you.
Price
For UOL, you'll be looking at a damage of about $25,500 if you are not a business student. If you are a business student, you can pay only $17,300 if you pass all their bridging but it's not that easy to pass as well. The bridging will also cost you about $535 for each module and the average business diploma grad student would need to get bridging for two modules so that would come up to be about $1070 + $17,300 = $18730. For my case, I'm not a business diploma grad so I'll have to pay $25,500.
For RMIT, I would be looking at about $26,964 for the Advanced 1 degree. All non business diplomas from any of the 5 local polytechnics would qualify for the Advanced 1 degree and for business diplomas, you qualify for the Advanced 2 degree which will cost you $20,223.
Price-wise I would say UOL is slightly cheaper than RMIT but coughing out at least $20k for a degree? I'm not sure if I can even recoup these losses.
Length Of Study
UOL's Business Management degree requires a minimum of 3 years duration to complete. Unless you get credit exemptions which for my case there is none because I'm not a business diploma grad. UOL has 12 full time units which are split equally into 3 years so I'll get 4 units a year. Guess it's not that hard to juggle 4 modules a year but it's probably going to be harder than what I think. The really big difference here is that these modules last a year and if you fail them, you're going to have to take another whole year of the same boring shit. For students who get credit exemptions of 4 units because you have a business diploma, you can take 2 years to complete your remaining 8 modules. Even if you only get 3 exemptions and are left with 9 modules, you can still take 4 units in your first year and 5 in your second year provided that you pass everything.
RMIT on the other hand provides a short and sweet route to your beloved degree. For local polytechnic non-business degree graduates, you'll be qualified to take the Advanced 1 degree which is 2 years and for business degree holders, you get to go for Advanced 2 which is only 1.5 years! Hurray to a quick degree!
The below listed diplomas are all classified as business degrees so you only need 1.5 years for the degree!
Ignore the alphabetical group on the right unless you're interested in other degrees offered by RMIT.
Even if your diploma is not listed here, as long as it's from any of the local polytechnics, you'll still be eligible for a 2 year roller-coaster ride to the Business Management degree in RMIT.
I wouldn't even go into the non-technical details like culture and grading styles because I already have my choice. I'll choose
NEITHER OF THEM
The reason why I'm choosing neither of them is because a lot of private uni graduates are unable to find a job after graduation. If you'd look up jobstreet or jobsdb or any other job portals for a degree job, most of them would require a 1-2 years experience. From what I would think from the company's point of view, degree holders are usually employed to hold a minor supervisory role at entry level and these supervisory roles would require some relevant experience. If you have no experience and is desperate for a job, you could possibly only get a diploma rated pay of $2k even though you're armed with a degree.
It's really much easier to find a job at a diploma level because it's definitely cheaper to hire a diploma holder than a degree holder when they both have no working experience. If you are a degree holder without experience, there's really not much you can do with your degree knowledge because what the employers are looking for is no longer what you have studied but rather what you have worked as.
My choice of tertiary education is
UNISIM
Reason being UNISIM is the only private university recognized by the government. This sentence alone has so much perks that I hope you'll flock to UNISIM after reading this post.
First of all, being a government recognized university, you have a higher chance of getting into government bodies. Afterall they say that a government job is probably much more secure than any other job.
Secondly, UNISIM has a business management course as well. I'm intending to study part time while working full time to gain some experience and at the same time pay for the exorbitant course fees. Note that UNISIM has currently started full time courses but it's really hard to get in.
Thirdly, I just can't explain how much of a discount you will get if you are studying at UNISIM as compared to UOL or RMIT.
As a Singapore Citizen, I qualify for the government subsidy which is a whopping $10k+ discount from the original course fees. However this government subsidy has several criteria to be fufilled.
- Applicants have not previously received a government-subsidized undergraduate education or higher qualification;
- Applicants must be at least 21 years of age;
- Applicants must have either 2 years of full-time work experience or are currently employed on a full-time basis.
The wonderful thing is that NS has given me 2 full years of wonderful full-time work experience.
The business management degree is under the school of business and is a basic degree so it would cost me about $14k+. Definitely much cheaper than UOL and RMIT.
Last but not least, being a government recognized university, I'll be able to use PSEA to pay for my tuition fees. PSEA is the tertiary version of Edusave and the government will occasionally top up the account with some money but I'm not too sure how it works as well. Nevertheless you can check your PSEA balance by calling the 24hr automated hotline at 62600777. The money in your PSEA account will be automatically transferred to your CPF Ordinary Account if there are still balances after you reach 30 years old. As of now, it's a really good and timely aid to pay off my initial tuition fees.
That's about all explaining my choices for my tertiary institution and I hope I've convinced some of you to go to UNISIM and be my schoolmate. (P.S We can share lecture notes.)
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