SMU School of Information Systems and the University of Melbourne (UoM) School of Engineering have launched the SMU-UoM Sequential Master Degrees Advanced Standing Programme. It provides students with the unique opportunity to study at both universities consecutively and graduate with the SMU Master of IT in Business (MITB) and UoM Master of Information Systems (MIS) degrees.

At a ceremony to mark the signing of an agreement governing the programme, Dean, SMU School of Information Systems and Professor of Information Systems Pang Hwee Hwa said, “SMU is very honoured to collaborate with UoM through this programme. This is the first Sequential Master Degrees Advanced Standing programme that we have established with UoM, Australia’s number one university for engineering and technology¹. There has been a good level of interest in the programme so far and we are very confident that this collaboration with UoM will be a great success and will attract high quality students to both our programmes.

Also speaking at the ceremony to explain the benefits and structure of the programme were SMU Associate Professor of Information Systems (Practice), Associate Dean, SIS Post-Graduate Professional Education and Director, MITB (Analytics) Programme, Michelle Cheong and UoM Associate Professor of Computing and Information Systems, Shanton Chang. They described how through this collaboration, MITB graduates will have the opportunity to earn a UoM MIS degree in one year (by completing 8 subjects), instead of the typical two years (by completing 16 subjects). This is made possible by the 100 points earned which is equivalent to 1 year credit waiver into the UoM MIS programme, as students begin study from the 2nd year of the UoM MIS programme to earn the remaining 100 points. UoM will grant MITB graduates this credit waiver for up to 5 years after graduating from SMU.

Ranked 1^st in Asia and 11^th worldwide², the SMU MITB is well recognised as a programme that trains students to analyse data with a deep understanding of business problems, and to integrate solutions into business processes. These skill sets developed by the SMU MITB programme complement the business and IT focus of the UoM MIS. Students will also benefit from experience of studying in two global cities on two continents as well as developing an international network of industry contacts.

UoM Dean of the Melbourne School of Engineering Professor Mark Cassidy said, “This is something really wonderful for our university to be involved in with SMU… I’m looking forward to welcoming you at the University of Melbourne.”

For more information on the SMU-UoM Sequential Master Degrees Advanced Standing Programme, please visit: https://sis.smu.edu.sg/master-it-business/UOM-MITB

¹QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018

²QS Masters in Business Analytics Rankings 2019: The SMU MITB programme was ranked 1^st in Asia and 11^th worldwide out of 75 Masters in Business Analytics programmes from 17 countries.