Deakin University opens its doors to first postgraduate batch in Gujarat

“When I am getting a return of Rs 50 lakh against an investment of Rs 22 lakh, this is certainly a better decision than studying in Canada, Australia or even Iceland,” Phalak Mitra, a 20-year-old commerce graduate who had worked as a capital market and security analyst, told The Indian Express.

A large number of students who took admission in the two courses (in cybersecurity and business analytics) offered by the campus are from Gujarat, closely followed by Maharashtra and New Delhi, with some from Chennai and Bengaluru as well. The course Master of Cyber Security (Professional) has 15 students while Master of Business Analytics has 30 students.

With an age range of 21 to 27, most of the students come with a few years of work experience. Bhavishya Rane, who is 25 with a BE in Computer Science, worked for three years as a technical analyst in Mumbai. He said that he gave up the idea of studying abroad after going through Deakin’s curriculum, comparing costs, and taking the issue of having to adjust in a new country into consideration.

Shreyas N M, a 22-year-old from Bengaluru with a BE in Artificial Intelligence, had been looking to pursue a master’s degree from Germany. “When I researched Germany in terms of employability, I realised I did not have many options, and the fee of the Deakin course in AI was similar to those in Germany— around Rs 25 lakh,” he told The Indian Express. Satya Vibhav, a 23-year-old BE graduate in Computer Science, said that after applying for cybersecurity programmes in Canada, her research told her those universities “were not up to mark,” adding that in order to study abroad, she would have had to work to cover her expenses.

The university has offered two fully funded scholarships covering tuition and living expenses. There is a 20:80 ratio of faculty who are from Deakin in Australia teaching the students here to the number of new faculty from India.

Having 45 students against the university’s intake capacity of 100 students is “despite “receiving applications and expressions of interests from thousands”, Deakin’s Vice Chancellor Professor Iain Martin told The Indian Express. “The batch size for Business Analytics is larger as students from different backgrounds of study are eligible to join. In contrast, students in the cyber security batch are from IT and Computer Science fields, which is a prerequisite for studying this course. We did not want to compromise on the quality and thus followed a stringent selection process.”

Ravneet Pawha, Deakin Vice-President (Global Alliances) and CEO (South Asia) said the cohort “will have Deakin’s hands-on approach to learning”, adding that the students will have opportunities to intern with “top industry partners” such as IIBX, Infosys, HCLTech, TCS, NSE Academy, XEBIA, India INX, L&T Edutech, Indifour Consult Private Limited, and IBM.

She added that the university will add short-term fintech and AI courses soon.

Saumil Shah, the student services coordinator from Deakin’s career guidance team DeakinTALENT said, “For internships and placements, we would start from GIFT City followed by top companies including ones from Japan who are coming back to India. Our team will support students in their profile-building, communication skills and presentation skills.”

Upon graduation, these students will form a part of Deakin’s international alumni network, which includes over 20,000 graduates worldwide.