I’m an arts/law graduate. I graduated in 2004 and now work as a lawyer at a commercial law firm.
I went to a public school in Werribee from years 7 to 10 and did my VCE at a public school in Newport.
I first started thinking about tertiary study in year 10 when I had to choose my subjects for VCE. At that stage, I knew I’d have to do some form of further study (because I’m ‘hopeless with my hands’!), but I had no idea what I wanted to do or whether to go to university or TAFE.
I was pretty much on my own in terms of gathering information about tertiary study. I didn’t have any older friends or close cousins who had been to university and, although my parents were always supportive, they couldn’t advise me about tertiary education because they didn’t finish high school. My step-dad has a degree, but he did it at night after work in the 80s, and he wasn’t sure about the options available to me. This forced me to be independent early on, and was good because I didn’t experience any added pressure from my parents to go to university.
I started doing some basic research in year 10 because I knew you needed prerequisite subjects in VCE for certain courses. I didn’t contact universities or TAFE colleges at that stage– I just relied on some brochures my careers teacher gave me about prerequisites. I was lucky in this respect because I knew that I didn’t want to do any maths or science stuff when I finished school, and most of the humanities courses I was interested in only required English. My teachers were pressuring me to do maths/science subjects in VCE to boost my ENTER, but I ignored their advice and did subjects I enjoyed. I would have failed specialist maths for sure! I ended up doing legal studies, Australian history, Australian politics, international studies and further maths in VCE.
It wasn’t until I was in VCE that I started to get serious about researching specific courses. By that stage, I hoped to get into university rather than TAFE, but I still got some information about TAFE just in case I didn’t get in to university.
As I didn’t know much about courses or the costs involved in going to university, I spoke to my careers teacher to find out about open days. I went to a few of these in both years 11 and 12 (including open days at VUT, La Trobe and Melbourne). I went by myself and caught public transport so I could see how easy it was to get to each university.
The open days were great because I got to talk to current students and lecturers. I got detailed information about the courses I was interested in (such as the specific subjects you could take, how the courses were taught, what the assessment was like, and what types of careers the course could lead to). Importantly, I also got ‘a feel’ for each university – I saw how big they were and how many of them were like mini-cities with cafes, bars and shops. Although there’s a bit of ‘information overload’ at the open days, the brochures I got were a great reference for when I came to decide which courses to apply for in year 12.
In the end, my preferences were really broad and reflected the fact that I had no idea what sort of ENTER I’d get. I put down mostly humanities courses, and I had everything from Melbourne University to a TAFE course (that guaranteed entry into second-year university) on my preference form. Ultimately, I got a high enough score to get into arts at Melbourne. I was rapt!
My score wasn’t high enough for law though, so I did one year of straight arts (doing subjects like criminology, legal studies and Australian politics), got good marks, and was able to do an ‘internal transfer’ into the combined arts/law degree the next year.
Admittedly, I was pretty petrified about starting at Melbourne University. No one else from my school got in, I had no friends there, and some of my teachers told me that the people there were really snobby! Thankfully, I quickly found out that this wasn’t the case. I made heaps of friends during Orientation Week, where groups of new students spend time with a current student who introduces them to university life.
I’m glad I went to university – I made some lifelong friends and have a degree that will keep opening doors for me in the future.