Indian student Fatema Kapadia (pictured) has praised CQU and the Brisbane campus experience.

Ms Kapadia enrolled at CQU when she was still living in Bombay - initially because of its competitive study costs.

"I had just married my husband, who was about to acquire permanent resident status in Australia and through whom I would acquire a right of residence in Australia; but I was not prepared to wait for his PR status to come through before joining him in Australia, and enrolling at an Australian university would enable me to join him immediately," she said.

"My undergraduate degree in accounting was from Bombay University and while it was to my knowledge a perfectly respectable degree, it was not clear to me that it would readily be recognized by Australian employers, so it seemed wise to have my qualification certified, so to speak, in the form of a graduate degree from an Australian institution".

Ms Kapadia said CQU had indeed given her an Australian qualification enabling her to become certified by the Australian professional accounting societies.

"But as it happens, CQU has provided much more than I actually expected, because in fact I have acquired a wide array of new skills that I didn’t know I lacked," she said.

"In particular, the particulars of accounting practice in Australia are new to me, as well as the various statutory regimes which impact on accounting in this jurisdiction.

"Partway through my second year of study, I found an extremely well-paid job with a Mitsubishi Motorama dealership, which I had initially hoped I could work in part-time while completing my degree.

"But the demands of my CQU studies were rather more onerous than I thought and so I was unable to continue in this job. I am now in my last semester and will graduate with a Master of Accounting in August 2006".

Ms Kapadia said that she and her husband quickly acquired a social network in Brisbane and had a very active and enjoyable social life, with a highly varied range of friends, from many countries.

"And whereas I had the notion that living in Australia would involve saving to visit my home in India as often as possible, actually my highly favourable accounts of life in this country have led friends and family from there to visit here instead".