leginmat

Hey Guys,

I'm an Aussie who moved to the states a while back. I know this has been discussed quite extensively through a search of older topics but most have been in situations regarding UK degrees. I'm hoping that maybe a fellow Aussie can chime in if there are any differences as such.

I graduated with a 3-year Australian bachelors degree and was under the impression that this would be equivalent to the USA's standard 4-year degree. Upon finally getting my credentials certified by one of the NACES members, I was told that my degree was only equivalent to "90 semester hours" in which 120 is the norm in the US; simply read, I'm guessing that means I'm a year short...My question is that after discovering these companies are not regulated and their reports are merely opinionated in nature, has anyone had their Aussie degrees transferred as equivalent? After receiving my results, I checked out WES.org (another member of NACES) and their quick online equivalency tool showed that my credentials is indeed equivalent to a US Bachelors. I'm interested as to seeing how varied the results are from these NACES members.

Any other insight and information would be appreciated. Thanks.

ian-mstm

Were you asked to get your credentials certified? If not, one wonders why you even bothered - or, worse, why you'd pay money to have it done! If a company is interested in hiring you, let them suggest whether or not it's required. That said, WES is generally considered to be one of the better agencies out there.

Ian

petitefrancaise

Why do you need it evaluated?
If you're applying for a masters then the college or university will tell you which service to use and if you need it done for professional accreditation then the organizations concerned will have their own way of evaluating your degree. If it's just that you need a BA or BSc for a job then apply just telling them you have a bachelor's and see what they say.

leginmat

Unfortunately for my situation, the employer is asking for a NACES member to accredit my foreign credentials. I'm sure most others are merely asking for a preference of a Bachelors in which case, I might be able to slip through the crack but I'm just trying to broaden my chances of employment with those specific companies that do want this done...unfortunately for my wallet.

PetrifiedExPat

I would be shocked of it was different for OZ vs UK degrees (in terms of the process of validating for a US employer), but, I found the whole thing to be more about whether I actually took and passed the degrees at the institution I was claiming, rather than whether the degrees were equivalent.

carcajou

The Americans do an extra year of "general studies" compared to Australians - ie, you have to take a "breadth" of courses across disciplines your first two years and then major-related courses your last two years. You apply to a university in the US in the generic, and not to a degree program at that university in the specific as you do in Australia (ie, early in your final high school year, you are accepted to the University of Utah, not the biology program at the University of Utah).

The 120 hours is a legal requirement in most (if not all) places and not-negotiable. There are times when students finish all their degree units but don't have 120 hours, and have to take underwater basket weaving, theories of pony riding etc just to get to 120 hours.

steveq

Which is why American degrees are total crap, at the undergraduate level..

carcajou

Just to follow up, I checked the state licencing division for my profession - they require NACES and they require equivalency. I checked another state and they require the same thing.

So I suppose it depends on the employer/profession but if it was in my field which requires a state licence, I don't think OP would be equivalent and would be declined until he/she did those extra 30 hours.

carcajou

Sorry how is that related to the OPs post, and why should we care what your opinion about US undergraduate degrees is? This topic has been bleated to death on this forum.

Do you have anything relevant to add for OP?

PetrifiedExPat

I might actually start trying to teach this, it seems to be catching on...

PetrifiedExPat

but, but, but, they are so broad, so meaningful!!

My last post about that on this thread..

ddsrph

If you actually look at a major university catalog the required courses are not that unreasonable. They include things like English composition, scientific methology, foreign language, mathematics , history, and yes if you have a strong interest art history. For most people with a normal number of neurons there is plenty of room for this extra knowledge and little harm is done. Some of it may actually be found to be useful at some point in life.

petitefrancaise

I asked my daughter to compare her 4 year computer science course with Cambridge University's CS course.

She remarked that the CS components are just about the same except that in the first year they are taught some old tools that no-one uses in industry anymore, that the first year at Cambridge they have to do a social science -(?psychology) paper and that they don't do any research until the 4th year which is presumably when they get the honours part.

She has all the stuff that Cambridge do but with the most modern tools that are current in industry, as well as all the other subjects she has to do. Research is not part of her course but is expected as she is an honors student and it is what she does on top of all her other coursework.

Our opinion from looking at it was that the Cambridge Universtiy degree would give the student no more CS knowledge than the good US college but that the US student would be better educated overall. The added advantage to the good US degree is that the students will almost definitely have had 3 summers of internship on top.