Would you study MS Comp Sci at Univ of Texas @ Arlington, or Masters of Business & IT at U of Melbourne?

From the 2 countries you mentioned, Australia is most likely have the lowest cost of living, and probably the lowest tuition fee as well due to currency exchange. For Australia, on top of tuition fees, you will need to pay for campus fee (vary from each uni) and Overseas Student Health Cover (abt AUD$350/yr) and text books (abt AUD$200). These are the rough estimate of the fees for your study.

Before coming to Australia, you will need to pay the fee for student visa processing and health check-up. You may also be required to take an IELTS test for indication of your English proficiency (depending which country you come from) for application to uni and for visa.

Unfortunately I dun have much info abt Uni of Texas. Uni of Melbourne is one of the famous university in Australia. So I believe that in regards to recognition, you dun have any problems. Also, I believe that the course in Melbourne offers study both in business & IT areas, so you study 2 things in one degree. This is very good, since you have knowledge in IT and business, which is important if you wanna be network admin in a business and (maybe) want to setup your IT support business. I have a feeling that the course in Texas is only focus in the IT side.

I live in Melbourne and this is what you can find in Melbourne:

1. First of all… some people do not like the weather in Melbourne (you can have 4 seasons in one day). However, if you read the second weblink from The Age newspaper, you will find out that the weather is still more preferable than the other cities. Sure you can have 42C day in summer, but almost immediately you’ll get a much cooler weather pretty soon afterwards. It is very rarely that you got 2 or 3 consecutive days of hot weathers (unlike Sydney, Brisbane or Perth).

2. Melbourne is a city of diversity. If you are a newcomer, and you do not look ‘Anglo-Saxon’, you do not feel like an ‘alien’, since you can find almost every race in the world walking in the city. They are both immigrants and overseas students.

3. THE FOOD!! Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Thai, All-you-can-eat, African, Lebanese, Mexican, Sea Food… anything else? All available and lots of them in a very-very-very affordable price

4. Pretty good public transport system. With one ticket, you can switch from train, tram and bus. They do not always come on-time, but still reliable and improving (www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au). Good for students, since not all can afford car.

5. SHOPPING!!! Original branded clothing sold very cheap. There are even shopping tour, where the participants are taken to retails outlets just for shopping. Big temptations for ladies.

6. Crime rates… just read the third article on the bottom.

7. Night Life… hmmmm… I’ll say the centre of nite activities will be Crown Casino and Docklands. Altho there are still plenty of cafe’s and clubs scattered around the suburbs as well.

8. Tourist attraction. This is the area that I think Sydney is better than Melbourne, since it has most of it’s attraction within its suburbs. Most Melbourne attraction are pretty much out of Melbourne, such as the gold mines in the cities of Bendigo and Ballarat, The Great Ocean Road, Lakes Entrance, Grampians, skiing in Mt. Buller etc.

Hope this helps. Good luck on your study 🙂

ADDITION:

Which UT that TMS is referring to? I know UT – Austin is “ranked” higher that Uni of Melb. But UT-Arlington? Not even in the list.

BTW… I’ve got another university rankings from Shanghai Jiao Tong University World Rankings. However please be advised that in regards to rankings, lots of organisations are trying to create one, but none are recognised by any governments and all of them got their share of criticism. So really… you can’t judge the uni based on their so-called ranking.