Stepping stone for stude ts to work in various fields
THE demands of carving out a career in the 21st century promise to make the journey a tough one. This is especially true in the business world, where the use of information technology (IT) is no longer separate but interdependent.
Aware of this, Monash University Malaysia’s Master of Business Information Systems (MBIS) programme has been designed to integrate niche business and IT areas for students with or without an IT background.
“The world is very competitive. Hence, we need multidisciplinary experts who have knowledge in different domains, including the business and IT sectors,” says Dr Jasbir Kaur Dhaliwal, lecturer and MBIS coordinator at the School of Information Technology, Monash University Malaysia.
She adds that multidisciplinary experts can conquer blind spots that cannot be resolved by single-domain experts.
According to Dr Jasbir, the MBIS course prepares students to use IT to tackle business problems and work in areas such as business information research, project management and consultancy.
Candidates without an IT background can enrol in fundamental units such as Introduction to Business Inform on Systems and Foundations of Programming before moving on to advanced materials.
“The programme has two tra students have the option of branching in he research stream or the industry experience stream, depending on the cand ate’s area of interest,” says Dr Jasbir, adding that students can enrol in the programme on a full-time (two years) or part-time (four y Students with an IT backgroun an complete the programme in on nd a half years.
Previous students have emba programme for different reasons, including to enhance their knowledge for career progression and, for those who are keen on research, to pursue their PhD after completing the MBIS.
Speaking about career options for graduates, Dr Jasbir explains that the programme is a stepping stone for students to work in various industries either locally or abroad, as the skills and knowledge acquired are in high demand.
Some of the fields graduates can enter are cloud data centres, human resource analysis, food, clothing and companies handling trend analysis, depending on their area of interest.
A study carried out by Kelly Services shows that the monthly salaries for highdemand jobs such as lead software developer and software development manager with five to 12 years of experience can range from RM9,000 to RM15,000 and RM12,000 to RM18,000 respectively.
Project directors or SAP team leads with more than eight years of experience can pocket minimum salaries of around RM15,000 or RM18,000 respectively.
Monash consistently ranks among the top 1% of universities in the world and was 48th in the world for engineering and technology in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2014-2015.
With an MBIS degree from one of Australia’s most prestigious universities, students can go anywhere in the world.