Postgraduate study can help to verify and recognise all of the leadership skills and knowledge you’ve acquired in your career. However, the traditional path through academic study can be time-consuming and expensive.
Deakin’s Professional Practice degrees have been designed to take your leadership and your career to the next level – in the fastest, most cost-effective way possible.
What is a Professional Practice degree?
Deakin’s Professional Practice degree is a 100% online, fast-tracked course. It has been designed to allow you to continue working full-time, while you complete your coursework part-time. This course cuts down the time and cost of a traditional master’s degree by formally acknowledging the skills and experience of working professionals.
Instead of doing several units of study in the areas you’re already working in just to prove you have those capabilities, you will instead complete only 10 units: four core units, two Professional Practice credentials and four microcredentials or four core units, four Professional Practice credentials and two microcredentials.
Deakin University has developed these Professional Practice credentials in consultation with industry experts and professional bodies. Our credentials are benchmarked against the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF).
Driving strategic results
Each credential is an opportunity to think about that area of leadership and analyse your own relevant professional experience.
The credentialing process invites you to highlight a couple of examples of your proficiency in the relevant area of practice, then prepare a testimonial to support them. Those examples are then reviewed by academics and industry experts who have extensive leadership experience.
That’s half of your qualification completed right there, giving you a fast return on investment for your existing expertise.
The entry requirements for these postgraduate courses are usually based on recognition of prior learning in a bachelor’s degree or any other undergraduate degree. However, alternative pathways based on work experience are available, and all you need to do is contact Deakin to enquire for further information on enrolment.
How does a Professional Practice degree help me?
Employers consider postgraduate qualifications favourably, but academic study has traditionally been demanding of our time and cost prohibitive.
Professional Practice degrees are not only fast tracked and affordable, but they are a completely new way to do uni.
Deakin is the first and only university in Australia to offer Professional Practice degrees, which gives you a ground-breaking way to study.
Rather than just measuring your ability to remember what you’ve learned, the university's industry-endorsed credentials validate your experience and confirm your ability to perform professional practices.
You’ll also become a better leader by looking critically at your experience. Throughout your Professional Practice degree, you’ll develop, strengthen, and expand those leadership abilities.
Get recognised by employers sooner
Think back to your last job interview when you tried to sell your abilities in communication, critical thinking or problem solving. It’s not easy.
The credentials in our Professional Practice degrees align with the specific skills that employers are looking for.
This helps you to get the recognition you deserve from employers sooner, in three ways.
First, you’ll be actively aware of the skills that employers are looking for, and let’s face it, the skills they’re using to compare you with other potential candidates.
Second, during your Professional Practice degree you’ll identify examples of your proficiency in these skills. You’ll also improve and extend those abilities.
Third, after critically analysing your skills as part of credentialing, you’ll be able to discuss them in an effective and convincing way that will have a greater effect on employers.
Develop and strengthen your leadership abilities
Not everyone is a born leader, but all of us can learn, develop, and strengthen our leadership abilities.
According to Seek, the three things that make a great leader are communication, a positive attitude, and the ability to delegate.
Communication is so key to our Professional Practice degrees that we’ve devoted an entire credential to it. Great communication skills feed into every other credential and all aspects of life, work, and leadership.
In fact, you can bolster your communication skills with credentials in critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration.
The ability to delegate can be challenging to learn, which is why a separate credential is dedicated to leading and developing people. Developing others creates relationships of trust which helps the process of delegation run more smoothly.
As part of your Professional Practice degree, you’ll also improve your delegation potential with credentials in cultural engagement, empowering others, and driving strategic results.
That just leaves a positive attitude to become a great leader. Leadership isn’t always plain sailing and there can be days that are harder than others.
The good news is that the credentials you’ve completed in your Professional Practice degree won’t just convince employers that you’ve got this – they’ll convince you too.
In addition to having the skills to negotiate the obstacles of leadership, you’ll also have the confidence to do it with a positive attitude.
Prove you’re qualified against recognised standards
The credentials in Deakin’s Professional Practice degrees have been built on recognised industry skills frameworks and the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).
Bringing those standards into the course structure provides a benchmark against which your skills and professional expertise can be measured.
Before you begin your Professional Practice degree, you can compare your leadership abilities against this benchmark to identify areas that you want to improve.
After you complete your Professional Practice degree, you can use the same benchmark to prove to employers that your qualifications meet recognised standards.
Eliminate any questions that the executive might have about your leadership potential and pave your own career advancement further with the master’s qualification for leaders.
To learn more about our Master of Leadership online, call us on 1300 043 524.