UCL students pursuing Monash IT Degrees shaped to be industry-ready
UCL conducts the Monash University Foundation Year (MUFY), a pre-university program that prepares students to join the Monash College Diplomas offered at UCL or enterthe first year at Monash University, including the degrees and majors related to the IT fields - Business information systems, Computer networks and security, Computer science, Creative computing, Cybersecurity, Data science, Games design, Games development, Information and society, IT for business, Mobile apps development, Multimedia development, Software development, Software engineering, and Web development.
The MUFY and Diploma of Engineering (IT stream) offered at UCL allows students to pick subjects and tailor their studies to suit the university degree they would like to pursue in the future. To meet the high standards of this world-recognized program, UCL has built a strong academic and administrative team. All lecturers are either PhD or MSc/MBA qualified with international-level experience in their respective field of expertise. Lecturers are hired after a rigorous interview process, and finally confirmed by Monash College. Student support and close student interactionand guidance are a top priority. Currently the lecturer panel includes 10 full-time and 10 part-time lecturers. Two full-time lecturers in the IT field are featured below – Dr. Dhananjay Kulkarni whose teaching/research expertise are in Algorithms, Database Systems, Information Security, Ms. Kaleeka Ekanayake who has expertise is in Business Information Systems and Management Information Systems.
Dr. Dhananjay Kulkarni, Dean at UCL had the following to say about the Monash programs delivered at UCL, “I believe that Universal College Lanka (UCL) is a very special place for students and staff, and hence we encourage prospective students and parents to explore the information available further and to get to know us better. Based here in the heart of Colombo, currently UCL is in an exclusive partnership with Monash College, Australia, to provide pathways for students to pursue their higher education at Monash University. Monash, as you are probably aware, is a top university in Australia - part of the G8 Universities, ranked 73rd in the world, and #1 in Engineering and Technology in Australia. This makes us one of the top-ranked international partnerships in Sri Lankan private higher education, with high potential for institutional growth.Our students pursuing the IT-related degrees are obviously going to be sought-after professionals soon.”
Coming from astrong IT background, Dr. Dhananjay is aware of the industry trends and had the followings insights to add, “IT sector is growing globally and Sri Lanka is no exception. We have seen many startups in the IT field right here in Sri Lanka and many of them are unique ideas, Apps and software products to satisfy the consumer needs and to make our life easy. IT being an integral part of almost every sector, we are seeing that IT professionals are more and more in demand in all types of industry. In Australia, IT/Computing professionals have been highly sought-after for a long time and there seems to be no change to this trend. UCL is doing its part in grooming these young minds into becoming top industry professionals – the MUFY and Diploma programs are a good stepping stone for career success!”
Speaking about UCL’s recent academic success, Dr. Dhananjay added, “Things are moving very well right now - with high academic rigor, growth in student enrollment, excellent facilities and well-qualified staff for teaching. In the first year itself we have seen excellent student performance and high pass-rates in the programs we offer, including 2 world prizes. Since successful completion of these programs (with the required pre-requisites) guarantees a place at Monash University – either in Australia or Malaysia, many students have already taken this path, and this trend is continuing to grow in Sri Lanka.”
At UCL there isno compromise on the facilities and library/IT support available to students. UCL has shown the committed to having small class sizes (maximum of 25) and using modern teaching and learning techniques that enable close guidance to students and enhance the student learning experience. Due to the ‘student-first’ approach adopted from top-to-bottom level of the management, UCL considers student feedback and suggestions very important for improving theacademic quality. The transparency in practices and good professional relationship between students and staff has created an excellent environment for learning and personal interaction.
Ms. Kaleeka Ekanayake, Sr. Lecturer in IT has been with UCL from the inception, and having taught in the MUFY and Diploma programs, she had the following things to say about how students are being prepared to be industry-ready, “As there is an increasing demand for universities to produce industry-ready graduates who can fulfill IT job roles and make significant contributions to their employers, the employers expect graduates to have comprehensive skills and industry-awareness from their university course. In order to satisfy this need and prepare the students to higher study and industry-skills, we practice unique ways of teaching here at UCL, close interaction with students in class, getting students to analyze and present the real life case studies, exposure to developing practical skills by designing games/databases/user interface applications and etc. The programming languages and software which are market demand are all installed in our IT labs and taught in a way that students learn practical skills and have long-term retention of knowledge, such as for SQL, Python, Visual Studio, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel etc. The curriculum is periodically revised to keep up with the industry practices. As we all know, the basic skills will be needed by all types of professionals in the future, hence, we develop these skills in students who wish to pursue IT-related and non-IT related degrees. Following units related to IT are taught at Diploma level in UCL – Computing for Engineers, Introduction to algorithms and programming, Introduction to Computer system, network and security.”
Speaking about the student performance in IT-related units, Ms. Kaleeka added, “With a 100% pass rate for all the IT units we offered last semester, we are very confident of guiding students well in the future. We were delighted to hear from Monash that UCL student Binura Gunasekera is the world-wide topper for the Computing for Engineers unit with a High Distinction of 89 % marks. He is alsoa scholarship recipient at UCL and currently enrolled in the Diploma of Engineering program.”