Wednesday 27 August 2014

Postgraduate applications ...

More graduates at NMMU are studying further
It doesn’t take rocket science to appreciate that the better your education qualifications, then generally the better your salary.

That’s why we’re smiling at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University today.

You see a quick look into the latest postgraduate applications to NMMU shows that an increasing number of students appreciate this fact, and are hoping to study further.

Or in numerical terms, the university has received the following number of applications for study in 2015:

· 560 honours degrees

· 506 masters degrees

· 76 doctoral degrees

But what is even more gratifying, is that these figures are substantially higher than those received at the same time last year.

In fact, they are 154%, 93% and 204% better respectively than exactly a year ago.

A further breakdown of the present statistics reveals the biggest growth to be in the faculties of Arts, Business and Economic Sciences, Health Sciences and Science. However, every faculty’s applications for postgraduate studies show a marked increase.

Of course, the big question is why?

Why this exceptional increase in the number of applications?

As part of the marketing division within the university, we’d personally like to think it’s the great work of our student recruiters in selling the advantages of postgraduate studies at NMMU. We’re also hopeful that the NMMU television commercial – a first for us – has had a positive spin-off in terms of recruitment too.

But if we’re really honest, there are probably several reasons for the increase, not least the economy and a lack of job opportunities.

The general consensus of senior students interviewed at the Careers Fair at the end of July was that they’d study further if they were unable to get a job or if they were able to get a bursary to support their postgraduate studies. It’s a matter of grabbing whichever opportunity arises first.

This is also why the number of applications may not translate into actual registrations. Many students simply test the waters – applying at several universities in the hope that financial support will materialise for them.

So now it’s a waiting game to see if our hopes for a vastly increased number of postgraduate students for 2015 will materialise or not.

In the meantime, if you’re more curious still about which postgraduate qualifications are attracting student applications, here are the numbers with the 2013 figures followed by the 2014 figures.

Faculty

Arts

Honours

25     84

Masters

53    54

PhD

5     4

Business and Economic Sciences
Honours

53    161

Masters
39    124

PhD

11    34

Education

Honours

21    26

Masters

1     12

PhD

1    5

Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology
Honours

9    13

Masters

16   43

PhD

2    20

Health Sciences

Honours
58      158
Masters

129    228

PhD

2    7

Law

LLM

15   18

PhD

3   3

Science

Honours

54    118

Masters

9      27

PhD

1   3
If you’d like further information on postgraduate studies contact Jo-Ann.Daniels@nmmu.ac.za or call 041 5043084.



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