My uni experience is… well, it’s a long story.
I graduated VCE in 2011 with a pretty good ATAR – enough to get me into Arts at the University of Melbourne. At the time, I had no real idea of what I wanted to do, and my choice was mostly based on prestige and the idea that I might go on to study postgraduate Law. At the time, it all seemed quite glorious and exciting, but my passion didn’t last long.
In fact, my passion barely made it through the first half of my first semester.
It was confusing. Here I was, a particularly academic student who always wanted to be “intelligent” getting grades lower than I ever had in my life. Why on Earth could this be?
My grades picked up, but I didn’t feel as if things got much better. I continued with my degree until the start of 2014 when I deferred. After two years, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was too frustrated.
I mean, after thirteen years in school, university was supposed to be the place where arbitrary requirements didn’t exist, and academic freedom reigned. Alas, I was still forced to be present for roll call and still had to hand in a doctor’s certificate when I was sick. Top that off with a two-hour one-way travel time and you can see why I was disenfranchised.
More than that though, I had goals that were beyond tertiary education. The idea of being stuck in uni until my mid-twenties, and then stuck in a low-paying grad role until my early thirties just never appealed to me. I wanted to work, I wanted to save. I wanted to travel and wanted to be able to work towards buying my first house. At the end of the day, my university studies as they were just weren’t conducive to how I wanted to live my life.
Cue: deferral.
In my year off, my personal training business flourished and with another part-time job on the side I managed to earn more money that I ever thought I’d be able to at my age. Things were going really well, but something was missing. Here I was, earning lots of money but not learning much at all. Was I really going to walk away from uni? After academics were so important to me for so long, did I really never want to get at least an undergraduate degree?
I started to feel unhappy. I really wanted to study, but I couldn’t handle having no money and my life being dedicated to uni. I had no idea how I was going to do both at the same time when those two ‘lifestyles’ seemed so inconsistent. I really wanted to find a way to do things on my terms, but as my year of deferral neared its end, things started to seem genuinely impossible. It was a stressful time.
It wasn’t until I confided in a friend that I started to realise that I could have it all. Firstly, Arts just wasn’t for me. I had to drop out. The two things I’m best at are Photoshop/Adobe Suite and programming – my friend pointed out to me how ridiculous it was that I was pursuing Arts… and this is after my top VCE score was a 47 in IT. So, it seemed as if digital marketing and software development were the two areas for me, which was lucky given the booming state of the IT industry. We started to look around at how I could pursue both of those interests at the same time and still have the freedom to do all of the things I wanted to do.
Cue: OUA – Open Universities Australia.
Back when I was figuring out what to do, traditional educational platforms were so habitual that doing uni via distance literally never even occurred to me. Now that I’ve been in my degree for a year now, nothing could make more sense.
Now, I get to organize everything my way. I’m the boss – not some random university administrator (who can be really hard to contact!)
Essentially, the personal control, flexibility, and independence afforded to me by distance education is the reason I can, and do, “have it all”. OUA have four teaching periods per year instead of the regular two, and you can take as many or as little subjects as you like in these times. If you really wanted to, you could finish a normal degree in half the time, but it also means that if you want to work full-time, travel, and live a good life, you can still do uni in the same amount of time. I can take less subjects per teaching period but still do a full year’s worth of uni – or more.
Now I can pursue full-time work, it looks possible to travel, save for a house, and smash my degree all at the same time. My grades are finally what I wanted them to be – well above an HD average. And if I do want to travel, I can sit my exams all around the world.
Oh, and – I still get a “legit” degree. I’ll end up graduating with RMIT’s renowned Bachelor of Information Technology – all while taking one or two units from a different uni, which means I’ve had even more options to study my interests.
So, four years on from my first university enrolment, my university experience is a long story – but one that I wouldn’t trade for the world. My time at the University of Melbourne taught me a lot – about the subjects I took and about myself as well – and my time running my own business and working taught me even more. Now that I get both of those types of learning I’m ecstatic and can’t wait to see what the future holds. The freedom of self-directed learning has seriously been a breath of fresh air and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Wherever you are right now – going into Year 12, sweating over your university offers, or languishing over a degree that’s not right for you… My advice would be just to take it easy. I spent so long stressing that I almost forgot to live! I was so worried about deferring and the time it would waste, but in the end, it was the best thing for me. Don’t get so caught up one doing what you’re “supposed” to do – start focusing on what’s “right for you”.
I did – and I’ve never looked back.
