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Monday, January 12, 2009

It pays to complete a degree at JCU

UNIVERSITY graduates are more likely to be employed than non-graduates according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

While the general unemployment Jigures are above 4 per cent and growing, of those with university degrees only 2 per cent are unemployed.

Graduates also have high starting salaries with the median starting wage of graduates aged under 25 around $45,000.

Graduate Careers Australia (GCA), the leading authority on graduate employment issues in Australia, recently released Jigures that showed that the top-ranked fields in terms of starting salaries were dentistry, engineering, earth sciences, medicine and mathematics.

James Cook University offers courses in all these fields and many more.

GCA, which is a peak body with representatives from universities and government, as well as graduate recruiters, says that graduates in mining engineering, pharmacy, medicine, civil engineering, and nursing achieved a high proportion of full-time employment.

At James Cook University there are more than isa undergraduate and i 40 postgraduate courses spanning the arts, business, creative arts, education engineering, indigenous studies, information technology, law, medicine and health sciences, veterinary sciences, social sciences, and science.

This year dentistry has been added to the JCU offerings.

While many of those enrolling at JCU in 2009 will be 2008 ’s Year i 2 graduates, there is also a large cohort of older students embarking on a tertiary education after some years in the workforce.

Others are returning to university to upgrade their qualilications in order to achieve advancement in their careers, and some want to change career direction altogether.

Whatever their ambition, a JCU degree will give them an internationally recognised and respected qualification.

With its major campuses in Townsville and Cairns, JCU is a comprehensive university, being one of only a handful of Australian universities teaching in nine or more of the 10 recognised fields of study.

The university will be making its major offer to new students on January 15 and there will be later offer rounds in February.

More than 16,000 students were studying under the JCU banner in 2008 including more than 4500 international students.

The university ’s graduates number more than 35,000, and the most recent cohort ranked their educational experience in teaching quality as four star along with graduate outcomes in getting a job and positive graduate outcomes.

The Good Universities Guide gave the Cairns and Townsville campuses five star ratings for electronic support, while the Australian Universities Quality Agency in its report commended JCU for its success in nurturing a "student-centred" learning culture and environment.

JCU ’s academics are world leaders in areas as diverse as marine biology and tourism. In the latter field, JCU has four of the world ’s leading tourism scholars, ranking it equal first with Texas A&M in this area.

Continued on Page 36

Continued from Page 35 In 2008, the Shanghai Jiao Tong ’s listing of the world ’s top 500 universities had JCU in its top 400.

It is one of only 15 Australian universities to make the list and not all are in the top 400.

The university has firmly established itself as a world leader in environmental and ecological research.

In 2008, Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators (ESI) ranked JCU as one of the top 50 most frequently cited research institutions over the period January 2003 to December 2007 in the category Environment/Ecology. Only six Australian universities achieved a Top 50 ranking in any of the 22 categories cited by ESI.

James Cook University ’s clearly defined intent is a brighter future for life in the tropics, world-wide and its purpose is to produce graduates and discoveries that make a difference.

Beginning as the University College of Townsville in 1961 as part of the University of Queensland, JCU became an autonomous university in 1970, and is Queensland second oldest university.

Townsville Sun
Queensland,Australia

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