The Head of ITS Business Management Study Program, Berto Mulia Wibawa SPi-MM believes that this cooperation is a step to improve the internationalization aspect in ITS campus environment

ITS Campus, ITS News – Collaborations and international partnerships continue to be intensified as a form of the answers from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) to global challenges. This time, ITS has established dual degree cooperation with the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia through the Business Management department.

Berto Mulia Wibawa SPi MM as the Head of Business Management Undergraduate Study Program explained that internationalization in college is a necessity. This is because internationalization is one aspect of evaluation in various accreditations and certifications of higher education.

Berto as his nickname revealed the Business Management Department finally carried out cooperation between ITS with UQ to instill the value of internationalization. Furthermore, Berto explained this cooperation occurred because ITS and UQ consider each other to have a fairly good reputation in the world, especially in terms of research and technology.

“Likewise with the competencies held by the lecturers both from UQ and ITS, it related to scientific publications and teaching,” he said. 

Besides, the distance between the two colleges which is not too far away is one of the factors of such cooperation. What makes ITS determined to establish cooperation with UQ is in terms of ranking. Currently, UQ is ranked at 47th based on the ranking issued by 2020 QS World University Ranking.

“We (Business Management Department, red) choose UQ is because we think that UQ competence in the field of business management has already qualified,” said Berto when interviewed by the ITS Online crew.

The program that has been running since 2017 has several requirements that must be met. Among them are students who want to join this program must have a minimum GPA of 3.0. Then, when registering, participants must have an overall IELTS score of at least 6.5. Likewise with other language standards such as TOEFL.

Furthermore, the details of the cooperation offered consist of two main programs, namely the dual degree program itself and the short course. For the dual degree program, students will undergo three semesters courses at ITS, then the next three semesters are conducted in UQ. Thus, participants will get two titles degree when graduating and can get international recognition when they want to pursue their careers abroad.

The focus of the field of study offered by UQ in this program is the marketing field. Courses in marketing are relatively more general compared to other focus fields. While in ITS itself, there are four focus fields of expertise, namely finance, marketing, operations, and human resources.

“In the future, it is expected that some adjustments can be made so the similar cooperation can be carried out in other focus fields,” he added.

Then, the short course program is planned to be conducted every July with a duration of three to four weeks. Students are free to take courses offered at UQ. Later the grades obtained in the course will be converted according to the courses that have the same competence at ITS. Besides, students can also get more experience related to internationalization when they take the short course program there.

Laura Hassett as the UQ representative from the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law (BEL), during her visit to ITS on October 25 revealed that she was quite pleased with the cooperation program. She admitted that the enthusiasm of the students was quite good, seen since the program was first started in 2017.

Laura Hassett as University of Queensland representatives from the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law (BEL) was giving a presentation regarding the dual degree cooperation program

At the end of the interview, Berto said that in the future the Business Management Department will try to develop further related to research fields. It is hoped that there will be a research collaboration between researchers at ITS with researchers at UQ with schemes that can benefit both parties. Likewise with educators who can learn directly to UQ in managing academic activities.

The improvement of human resource quality is the main focus going forward because to form a superior generation requires a strong insight into internationalization, especially in the current era of technological progress. Aspects of collaboration with universities such as UQ are also important so they can learn directly and able to improve competitiveness.

“Hopefully more and more students will take part in the internationalization program,” he concluded. (lut/rur/gayatri)