MCA Colleges in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

Memphis College.

Address

Overton Park, 1930 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104

Website

http://www.mca.edu

Admissions E-mail

info@mca.edu

Northern Kentucky University

Extracurriculars

Address

Nunn Drive
Highland Heights, KY 41099

Website

http://www.nku.edu

Admissions E-mail

admitnku@nku.edu

GRE test training goes online in India!!!!!

Chennai: As many as 50,000 Indians take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) every year but many flounder - not because of lack of knowledge but because they are not used to taking computer based tests. Now, GRE training has gone online, enabling students to be better prepared.

The GRE is an online, timed test that qualifies a person to get admission to American universities and is considered a proficiency benchmark by several other countries and international institutions.

On Wednesday, Valued Epistemics Pvt. Ltd (VEPL) launched greedge.com, India's first online training for GRE aspirants.

"The online test was put on public domain after thorough research and development since 2005," says Anand Kannan, managing director of VEPL.

As many as 15,000 successful candidates have passed through its portals during its development process on its technology platform wizdom.in.

"The inherent advantage of an online platform is that students can learn at their own pace and convenience, making it truly an anywhere, anytime learning", he added.

The programme is supported by a feature called The Millisecond Technology, a software that captures information on how students answer questions, analyses the data and offers them feedback and recommendations to boost their score. This technology is pending patent.

"In an online test environment - where every millisecond counts for scoring, this technology plays a crucial role in helping students boost their scores," said Yogish Lavanis, director of students facilitation at VEPL.

Another key advantage of greedge.com is that the student counsellor understands the time available and the student's specific skills to customise a programme which both can adhere to easily. This mentoring facility is available in person as well as over the telephone.

Anyone who enrols in greedge.com is assigned a Student Facilitator and Analyst (SFA) who guides the student through the entire duration of the preparation for GRE.

"There are two aspects to the functioning of Millisecond Technology - data capturing and analysis. The most important difference is that it does the analysis in real-time," said Lavanis.

When students log on to greedge.com and start working on GRE model tests, the Millisecond Monitor, which is embedded on the page, records the way students select their answers. With the help of predictive analytics technology, the data is "sliced and diced".

The information the SFAs gather about the student's behaviour from this process is then crystallised into intelligent feedback on their strengths and weaknesses, helping them understand where they are losing time and help them in correcting it.

About 120 hours of training comes at a cost of Rs.6,000 at present. Details of how to register for online GRE test training can be found at the website www.greedge.com.

Indian hotel management school teams up with Swiss college group

Udhagamandalam: A hotel management college here has teamed up with the internationally known Cesar Ritz Colleges of Switzerland to provide world class hotel management training in India.

From the 2007-08 academic year, the Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management in the resort town of Ooty, about 600 km south of Chennai, will be offering a Bachelor of International Business in Hotel and Tourism Management degree accredited by the Cesar Ritz Colleges.

The three-year programme will allow the students two years of study in India and one final year of study in Switzerland. The programme will provide students with employment opportunities in international hotels and restaurants.

The first two years of the residential programme will cost about Rs. 600,000 and the last year in Switzerland will cost about $32,000.

Martin Kisseleff, the owner of Cesar Ritz Colleges, said: "With the infrastructure growth that India is witnessing, it is necessary to provide world class training for the hotel industry in India."

The Cesar Ritz Colleges have academic collaborations with institutions in Peru, Columbia, Guatemala, Iceland, Spain, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Russia.

Indian varsity plans health science courses in Malaysia!!!!

Programmes like paramedical, pharmacy, physiotherapy, nursing and lab technicians will be added to the existing dental courses that are offered by the college, the university announced here.

"We are going to start health science courses in the same campus. Our courses are recognised by the Malaysian Medical Council and the JPA (Public Services Department).

"We expect more Malaysian students to join our college to pursue health science programmes," said the university's chief executive officer, S. Sharavanan.

Currently, the college offers a twinning programme where the initial two years of study of pre-clinical or basic science is done at the university's Salem campus in Tamil Nadu.

The students then pursue the final three-year clinical programme at the PIDC campus.

"PIDC leverages on the potential of the excellent Indian education system in line with Malaysia's high quality infrastructure standards.

"We strive to provide the right ambience for the students to take up dental study and health courses," Sharavanan told Bernama news agency. Around 200 Malaysians are currently studying at the Salem campus.

Vinayaka Mission's University conducts courses in a dozen countries, including Singapore and Thailand, largely specialising in medical studies, The New Straits Times said. IANS

Indian students opting for new career choices, modules in foreign varsities!!!!!

New Delhi: New patterns are emerging in the higher education choices of Indian students seeking admission to universities abroad, even as the volume of student traffic from India to Europe, America and Australia races northward.

Foreign education counsellors say they are seeing a growing interest in transfer admissions and undergraduate studies abroad. There is also a gradual shift from traditional courses to technology-driven and career-oriented modules.

Seventeen-year-old Yash Sahai, who wants to pursue an engineering degree either in Massachusetts or in Cornell University in USA, is interested in transfer study programmes. He has been attending career choice counselling sessions at the American Centre, with at least 50 students know more about these. The teenager is a first-year engineering student.

A transfer study programme is an academic module that transfers credit from a four-year degree-granting academic institution not affiliated to a university in the US.

Shevanti Narayan, country manager of the Educational Advising Services arm of the United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI), said students now want to keep their options open so as to switch from one field to another.

"We are seeing an interest in transfer admissions and USA undergraduate studies," Narayan told IANS in an e-mail interview.

She said students were choosing more inter-disciplinary programmes and experimenting with diverse subjects, adding: "They are exploring new disciplines."

"Indian students apply to a range of schools and colleges in different states of the US. Their choice of school not only depends on the field and level of study that the institution offers but also several other factors.

"For the past several years, California, New York, Washington, Texas, Massachusetts and Florida are among the leading states that Indian students are opting for," the USEFI official said.

Earlier, students were dictated by tradition rather than needs, career possibilities and individual flair for particular subjects, overseas education counsellors said.

The choice of courses is showing a gradual shift from humanities and general studies to specialised modules like business management and engineering which top the fields of study. Other popular subjects are life sciences, computer science, economics and health sciences, say counsellors.

Over the past three years, the demand for career-oriented courses dealing with environment, media and communication, art and design and law has grown, counsellors from the US embassy said.

According to an estimate by USEFI that facilitates the Fulbright scholarship programme in India, 76,503 Indian students were enrolled in American universities in 2006 and 83,833 in 2007.

Admission to graduate courses was much higher at 73.70 percent in 2006 and 71 percent in 2007. In contrast, enrolments in undergraduate courses was only 16.60 percent in 2006 and 15 percent in 2007, USEFI said quoting data culled from Open Doors 2007, Institute of International Education.

The growing number of students from India to the US has also prompted the two countries to expand the scope of the Fulbright scholarship programme, one of the most popular overseas academic modules for students of both the nations.

The programme, initiated in 1963, was revised on July 4 this year and renamed the Fulbright-Jawaharlal Nehru scholarships and grants. It will now enable double the number of exchange scholars and students to visit the US for high education and vice versa. Under the old programme, only 100 students from India could go to the US for advanced studies.

According to Biju Paul Abraham, an associate professor of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta and an alumnus of King's College in London, post-globalisation the demand for business study courses abroad have shot up because multinational companies need skilled business managers in India.

"Most of the students from my institute go abroad for their doctoral programmes, after they get jobs," he said. But Abraham, who counsels students in his leisure hours, says students at the undergraduate level who cannot make it to the premier Indian Institutes of Management often opt for "good business schools" across the globe.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that business and management is the most popular option for Indian students in Britain, followed by computer science, engineering and pharmaceutical sciences.

"An MBA degree in the UK costs around 15,000 pounds a year," Abraham told IANS.

The number of Indian students last year was 21,000, said officials at the British Council here.

"And we are growing at 10 percent annually," Amit Charturvedi of the British Council, told IANS in an e-mail.

France has also seen a substantial increase in the number of Indian students over the years, said Archana Chaudhary of the French embassy's education and culture wing here.

The total number of Indian students in France in 2007-08 was 1,700 and the French government issued 1,300 new student visas in the year.

French education counsellors in India say the USP of the country's education is "quality, variety and accredited degrees from the best institutes".

Cashing in on the rising aspiration of students in this country for foreign technical degrees, France this year has been hard-selling its engineering modules in India.

On July 3, French telecom major Orange announced engineering scholarships for meritorious students who wanted to study for specialised master's degrees in France.

The students will be joining two French engineering institutes, the Institute Superieur d'Electronique de Paris and Institut Telecom-Paristech.

French Ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said the scholarships were a wonderful opportunity to "bring the best of French higher education institutes, the industry and Indian talent on a common platform".

Alten, a conglomerate of French engineering firms, chose 16 Indian engineering students to study in technical institutes across France in April.

French education officials attribute the growing interest in France as an educational destination to the ability of Indian students to look beyond the US and Britain. Students were willing to explore Europe due to larger economic interests, counsellors said. IANS

DISTANCE LEARNING!! (ARTS)

People often choose to take up a job before completing graduation for
various reasons like a desire for practical expertise or financial crises.
The good news is that without the burden of lectures, you can easily get
a degree in Arts. Today, graduation and post graduation are available in
distance learning through which students can have a degree under their
belt

COURSES AVAILABLE:

In an attempt to improve the level of literacy in the country, even the
government is banking upondistance learning. Almost all universities in India
today have a distant learning department that offers several courses in the
various fields. In Arts, the most commonly chosen subjects are
Economics,Political Science, Philosophy, History, Psychology,
Sociology,Literature, etc.You can get a Bachelor of Arts (BA) as well
as Master of Art(MA) degree in these subjects throughdistance learning.
Apart from these commonly offered courses, certain universities like
Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU)offer specialisation in
BA in Tourism Studies, etc.

The duration for any Bachelor’s degree course is three years, and that
for Master’s is two years,divided into Part I and Part II.

Application procedure:

Applying for distance learning courses is simple. The forms are usually made available from the first week of July to September, which you can pick up either from the university or any other prescribed centres. The forms cost around Rs 100 for MA courses (Part I and II), Rs 50 for BA (SYBA and TYBA) and Rs 70 (for FYBA) in cash.

“The forms are available anywhere and you do not have to run to the university for it,” says Abhishek Goradia, who is pursuing his MA (History) through distance learning. The centres are mostly colleges listed under the respective university. For example, application forms for the University of Mumbai are also available in Raigad District and Ratnagiri.

Just like applying for other full-time courses, you need to fill the application form and submit it at the university/select centres along with the relevant documents.

Fees

Compared to other postgraduate courses offered in other institutions courses in Arts are much cheaper, “I just paid around Rs 2,500 for my course,” says Neil Joshi, a reporter with The Free Press Journal, who has just finished his MA Political Science (Part I), “I had to pay only Rs 2,000 for History,” recalls Goradia. If you are opting for course material from the university then it will cost you at the most Rs 700-800 extra.

Course structure

While BA comprises six subjects, MA is divided into two parts with four (compulsory) subjects Optional lectures, called Personal Contact Programmes (PCP), are conducted for distance learning students. These are from December to April. “I did not attend any classes as there was no pressure and I had a job to handle,” says Joshi. These are held in selected colleges of the university.

Study material

There are no prescribed books; nevertheless, there are a lot of reference material suggested to students. “I got a list of books around March,” says Goradia.

Apart from the reference material suggested, one can now also find information on the Internet. Frequenting the library, and talking to ex-students and finding out the best texts are a good option. Some universities also provide their own study material.

So with a little bit of confidence to do it by yourself, a course of in Arts shouldn’t be a difficult task.