An Uncertain Christmas

The ongoing saga of moving to back to Uni next year continues although at a less feverish pitch. I think I’ve just about found all the things I can add to VTAC and now there’s the prospect of the long wait until Round 1 offers on the 18th of January. The vast bulk of people looking to university in 2010 will most likely just kick back, safe in the knowledge that some sort of offers will arrive – school leavers have their ENTER score which gives them a pretty good indication of their chances. Sadly I have no such comfort.

I’m also not going to sit around and have no plan in case I get a bit fat zero of offers come mid January. I need a fallback plan. One such plan is using Melbourne University’s Community Access Program where you can basically just apply to study the actual units you’d be doing fully enrolled, and then use your results as the basis of entry into the BA program. This program is full-fee and in fact not even eligible for FEE-HELP which means I’d need to stump up over $13,000 up front. Curiously since 2009 the government has basically stopped Australian universities from offering full fee courses to domestic students, while promising to increase the level of commonwealth supported placements.

I think it’s reasonable to say that if I was free to hand over $13,000 to a university they would find a place for me on a course. They’re not allowed to though. Except for Melbourne Uni. Something of a paradox that.

With the belief that I have a not inconsequential case for applying to study, this scenario can raise hackles, if I let it. On the basis of many years of work experience and demonstrable dedication to study in more recent times… broken record cut. To be fair the universities have their hands tied. They’d like my money, but they’re only allowed to use those CSPs and they’re pretty much duty bound to choose those positions based largely upon year 12 academic results for school leavers and some additional programs for the disadvantaged. All perfectly reasonable and someone like me ends up down the list a ways. Not for lack of merit but, well, because I imagine there’s not a lot of us mid-career return-to-study types around to gain a sufficiently loud voice or a program of our own.

If I could full-fee I absolve them of risk. Their fee-paying business scales well, as the International student business proves. I don’t really consider it the fault of the Australian education system that I conspired to mess up my ancient academic record so completely. Though it might have been nice if someone would have simply asked in year 12, after 11 prior years of straight-A study, what was going on… I got my steady hand in the system, but I had to drop out and end up in a TAFE facility first.

Anyway, not being inclined to tell a sob story I’d rather make the case on more recent positive issues speaking to who I am now. I’m giving up a lot, potentially willing to saddle myself with a substantial debt even more than most students because I’ll even full-fee the first year (and then take my chances trying to transfer to CSP in subsequent years based on my academic results), and ultimately in pursuit of a skill set which Australia could really use.

I don’t mean to sound bitter, it’s exasperating at most and writing it here just helps solidify a case in my mind about why I’m exactly the sort of guy they should want in their university. Maybe it’s also helpful as a whine-detector. Annoying nasal sound detected, activate alternate dialog!

Anyway, next week there’s some change of preference events on at some of the universities which is hopefully going to be useful for research, particularly since I’ve not visited a couple of the campuses in person yet. Obsessive researcher that I am, I’ve already got a spreadsheet of useful contacts, suitable courses, costs and even travel plans and alternative study pathways. There’s more meat to put on the bones yet but ultimately come the 18th of January I’ll be able to take one look at the VTAC offers and scan down my sheet to take the best pre-planned pathway. This also means I’ll need to come up with a numerical value to assign to the quality and cost of beer on offer at the various student bars, these are the sorts of dilemmas I face! (cuh, like you’ll be able to afford beer sonny jim!)

This Christmas, in our new house. It’s going to be great to have some time off. I can always throw myself into Chinese. So any time I’m feeling at a loss I have something practical I can do. I don’t really like uncertainty mostly because I’ll run out of things to research and analyze and they’ll be nothing left to do but wait. Perhaps I should try aim to just relax this Christmas instead?

Chinese has a great saying which seems appropriate. 说起来容易做起来难… easier said than done.