Tom's Arizona@Australia Main Page
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[Glendale Comm. College] - [Maricopa Comm College District]
Page maintained by Tom Foley. Tom's email: tom.foley@gcmail.maricopa.edu
MCCCD is composed of 10 campuses in the metropolitan valley of Phoenix, Arizona, United States. All of the campuses are within 40 miles ( 66 Km) of each other and the population of the metro area is approximately 3 million. The TAFE Riverina Institute is composed of 17 campuses in large Riverina area of New South Wales, Australia, but most of the activities occurred in Albury and Wagga Wagga. The Riverina region is approximately 480 miles ( 800 Km) across and the population of the two largest cities, Albury and Wagga Wagga, are in the 40,000 to 50,000 range. The other cities are noticeably smaller.
Charles Sturt University has several branch campuses, including three in the Wagga Wagga and Albury areas. CSU is similar to most research universities in the US and it offers a wide variety of degrees at the Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. levels. The undergraduate Bachelors degree takes 3 years (compared to 4 years in the US) largely because very few (if any) courses are required outside of the major classes. There are several pro's and con's for this difference, but I know many of my undergraduate Computer Science students in the US are envious as they are struggling with Calculus III. On the flip side, many of the IT faculty in Australia wish that their students took more math.
The Riverina Institute of TAFE NSW offers many applied one and two year certificate programs that are partially occupational in nature, but they also can be thought as covering some of the intro courses for a university degree. I use the term "occupational" loosely and favorably because their graduates learn a great deal of applicable tools in a concentrated field of study that enables them to directly get into careers in areas such as Information Technology, Office Administration, Hospitality, etc.
The Maricopa Community Colleges intersects with both of these schools. Although our "mission" is multidimensional, perhaps the one that is utilized the most is that we teach most all first and second year courses that are taught at our universities. These courses are nearly identical with the university courses and there are official articulation agreements that generally yield an automatic transfer of credits. We also have many "occupational" certificates that are similar to TAFE Riverina. In addition, we provide continuing education for changing or evolving disciplines, developmental education, and general community education.
One very important aspect that these schools share is the high quality of education that takes place. Goodonyermates!