OK, I know I am beginning to seem indecisive, but I keep getting acceptances from Southern Queensland. As I had settled on Newcastle I had been ignoring them after I read the first one. However, when I withdrew from Newcastle I bothered to read the most recent one and I see that they, apparently, misprinted my first acceptance letter. The cost of the USQ program is actually half what I originally thought and is down in the range of where financial aid isn't a necessity anymore. In short, I am reconsidering my decision to avoid schools that are on the other side of the world. Can anyone give me some idea of what the DBA program at USQ is like? What are the lessons like etc.? Thanks.....
Dear DtechBA, Could you share with us what will the USQ DBA all in all cost for you?(I remember reading your post that the Newcastle would be around $20000). Thank you very much, Dennis
The DBA at USQ is not really online but what they call "external". This means that exams are conducted the traditional way by attending one of the USQ examination centres. Online support is available but most courses are just two assignments and a final exam. Online discussions are not graded. The new DBA is mainly research based and you are only required to take course work if you don't have enough credits for your major. For example, if your MBA is in marketing and your DBA in finance, then you will be required to take 4 units of finance before starting the dissertation process. The dissertation process is basically made of some research methodology units, a formal proposal and dissertation chapters submissions. The research methodology units are based on assignments, research papers critics and a research paper. The most challenging part was getting the proposal approved. It took me about a year to get it approved after dropping one idea completely. The general goal is to finish it in 4 years. Although this is quite possible, it depends a lot on your supervisor as some of them can take a lot of time to review your work. I was also shocked about the Australian grading system. It is quite common to get 60, 70 or 50 in assessments when this is quite low for canadian standards. The 50 is the passing grade but not so easy to get sometimes. In general, I can say that it is all about your research supervisor as this will make your experience good or bad with USQ.
I would say around 20K-25K AUD for the total cost of the DBA at USQ. The USD used to be quite strong and buy almost two AUD. However, this is not the case nowadays so I agree that the Australian option looks less attractive.
