Uni Life

Saturday 13th March 2010 marks the beginning of a new phase of my life. I will be a university student.

For the past few years I’ve taken some delight dispelling people’s assumptions when they have asked me where I am studying. From now on I’ll have to change my tune. Study will not be my full-time profession as I will continue managing 100.7 The Light and teaching at Wodonga TAFE, but I add to those responsibilities the study load of a postgraduate student.

I have been admitted to undertake a Postgraduate Diploma in Vocational Education and Training without an undergraduate degree. An undergraduate degree may well be in my future, but for the moment I’ll enjoy the irony of getting a postgraduate qualification first.

This course is aimed at providing additional training to TAFE teachers and workplace trainers who already have (or are in the process of attaining) a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. Thankfully I already have that Certificate, so I will only have to do 3 units plus a number of supervised teaching hours, probably for classes I would have to deliver for my work at TAFE anyway.

So, once again I swap the role of teacher for student and I suspect that my first day of lectures will be met with the same butterflies I used to get riding the bus to school on the first day of term.

Creative Commons: Study by DAEllis

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 9:20 pmand is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Uni Life”

  • Gary Ware Says:
    March 13th, 2010 at 8:55 am

    University is wasted on adolescents.
    Having been a mature age student, (with heavy emphasis on the ‘age’ part, at that point in my life) it’s wonderful to pursue tertiary education having had time in life outside the school system.
    Trust you’ll enjoy the experience.

  • Stephen Says:
    March 13th, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    Thanks Gary. I’m glad I didn’t go to university not knowing what I wanted out of it. Plus it is good to be there with a bunch of people that know what the ‘real world’ is like (especially since it is training for a specific work environment).

    Were there any skills or habits that you found useful in returning to study? (Perhaps a subject for mgpcpastor’s blog?)

  • Nathan W. Bingham Says:
    March 13th, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    You’ll continue to be a busy man Stephen by the sound of things.

    Is there any kind of Dr. Who, Time-Lord, or Star Trek “Space-Time-Continuum” involved in doing a post-graduate course without an undergraduate degree? ;-)

  • Stephen Says:
    March 14th, 2010 at 9:45 am

    Perhaps a little Jedi Mind Trick! Obi-Wan McDonald: “You don’t need to see my undergraduate degree.”

    Teaching in the TAFE sector requires a trade certificate and a minimum of 5 years teaching experience, and that is considered sufficient if you don’t have a Bachelor’s degree for this course (see here). I think it’s pretty cool.