Dec 29, 2012, 05:52 pm
Hi!
Australian Catholic University's TAFE division (ACUCOM) offer the diploma conversion course at the St Patrick's campus in Melbourne CBD. Next intake is February 2013 and direct entry applications are open now. First of all evilwitch18, I should make a few things clear....
- You don't have to be catholic to study there.
- Atheists, agnostics and people of all religions are welcomes - even those of the wiccan faith!
- I do seem to remember learning in high school history that the Catholic faith ceased their witch hunting activities in the 1600's, so I think your prospects of graduating unscathed are pretty good.
The University itself is very accsessable, being close to city loop trains, across the road from 2 seperate tram lines and a 5 minute drive from the eastern freeway. They even have a multi-story car park attached - $8 parking all day in the middle of the city!! It is quite a small campus and easy to traverse without getting completely lost! A new 6 story addition was finished which opened this year which I believe is predominantly dedicated to the Faculty of health with lots of new nursing facilities
It's run part time at the Melbourne campus which is located at the top of Victoria parade in Fitzroy. It's run 3 days a week and you have a 2 week clinical placement to complete. Not 100% sure of the duration. I highly recommend them as a study choice. Great course content, professionally delivered, organised and taught by extremely knowledgeable Tutors with years of experience in the field. Great learning support should you require it as well and access to databases, libraries and tutors that are actually there for you to bounce questions off. I studied my Cert IV with ACUCOM in 2011 and had planned to continue to up-grade to Diploma level but accreditation to offer the course wasn't finalised in time so I missed out. Gutted it turned out like that -ACU nursing graduates have a very good reputation in the industry and have high rates of employment.
I did a flexible delivery conversion course this year through a Melbourne based facility (who shall remain nameless) and it was a NIGHTMARE! Here are my experiences...
On-campus study is so much less hassle! It has much smaller amount of research and writing to do and hardly any time spent finding the information for your assignments - it's all provided for you in the lectures and there is pre- suggested books to read. Finding the motivation to do the amount work you have to cover can be difficult - especially when you are at home around distractions. I'm just lucky that I am old, and have put the brakes on my social life to dedicate the next 3 years to work and my degree! My unit questions were extremely vague, at times incoherent and never had a word count or allocated marks - I had to assume how in depth they wanted my answers. I had no contact from my facilitator after repeated emails and phone calls to get advice and probably did twice the amount of work that I actually had to. I will concede that I did learn plenty of fantastic information I utilise regularly as an EN Another real drag is that you may even have to sort your own clinical placements for EACH elective you do, as all have a clinical experience component to complete. And the facility that you go to must have a training agreement with your study provider.
Totally up to you what delivery mode you choose to do - that was just my experience of flexible self-directed learning. Other institutions may have a different structutre they follow. Just do your research and don't jump in the deep end too quickly like I did!
Link for course information and contact number for ACCUCOM is below.
http://www.acu.edu.au/courses/2013/other_courses/vocational_education_training_vet/diploma_of_nursing-hlt51607
If I can help you with anything else don't hesitate to PM me!
Bye for now.
