Australian into American Credit Question

Hello!

The average American master's degree ranges from 32 to 36 credits, whereas the average Australian taught master's ranges from 6 to 8 units per (i. e., courses in American terminology) program, depending on how the "credit points" are distributed. Does this then imply that the average Australian unit equals 3-4 American type credits?

Any evaluators on the list who can corroborate this? Any recommendation as to where one can obtain information on this?

Kenneth K. A.

 

In would say that is equivalent to 4 american credits. An australian MBA is 12 units and an american MBA is normally 45 credits. An australian MBA is normally completed in one year and hald and american too.

 

Depends where you go - a single credit unit usually represents between 25 and 33 hours study - comes out roughly to 200 hours per what we call a subject.

So a 12 subject Masters would represent about 2400 hours work. Again depending on where you go, a coursework subject involves 7-11,000 words form my experience all fully researched with 1/3rd being from primary research. A bibliography of 30+ would be expected.

When a dissertation is involved, it is normally about 1,000 words per credit point.

So you may do a masters where you have 4 coursework subjects [800 hours] and a 48 credit point dissertation [48,000 words]

However, some universities e.g. Deakin refer to subjects as '1 credit piont' and there they are meaning roughly about 200 hours work.

Hope that helps - we can't understand the American system

 

I agree with Peter. Generally 1 credit point=1,000 words. Also Peter, rember the unis here call a subject a 'course', just to complicate things further Equating this to the American system, I am not sure, but will have a look and get back to you.

Cheers,

George

 

I only wish my MBA students would put in 200 hours of work! I think 100 - 120 hours is probably more realistic of the average student for a course, with many of the bare pass students getting by on significantly less.