Raiha Ngati

Review of OUW

If you're a young single anglo saxon Australian, w...

If you're a young single anglo saxon Australian, with no caring responsibilities, or a demanding work situation, and have no problem with questionable ethical values then UOW may be the Uni for you. My experience as a mature age female sole parent (and local domestic student) was not so good at UOW 2008, hopefully things have improved. This started from the initial offer. After going back to school and getting an ATAR of 99.6, I was not offered my preferred course but the inferior choice. I have no idea why, I can only assume high marks are only valid if you are 18 yrs old. However, I decided to accept the offer just to gain my qualification. Apart from two teachers, the support I received was non-existent. Understand, I wasn't expecting special treatment, but considering the external demands reasonable exceptions such as asking for an essay extension once and being refused is not unreasonable. My external demands being - no support, raising children, cooking, cleaning, mowing, shopping, etc., Centrelink job search requirements (yes that's right, while all the young students take a well earned session break, as a sole parent Centrelink forced me to job search and eventually take a casual job 100kms away in Sydney, a commute time of 4 hrs, otherwise I wouldn't receive Centrelink and my children would starve). On many occasions young students were offered extensions so there is a definite bias from teachers towards the young at UOW, despite a large majority (not all) having less demands on time to complete assignments. So if you have a huge support system outside Uni, lots of child care options & positive supporters, then choose UOW.
Added to this is the patronising way some of the young students treat mature age students. On more than one occasion I was subjected to remarks implying I was 'dumb' because I was attending Uni as a mature student, despite my D's & HD's.
The 'indigenous centre' is only for Aboriginal Australian's, if you are from any other indigenous culture don't expect support. In fact, I would go so far as to say I was denied my turangawaewae (right to stand) as a Maori (identify as Maori on father's side & Pakeha on mother's side) from some teachers and students, despite my Rotorua roots, knowledge of whakapapa, and my grandfather's first language being Maori. To the point where a counsellor suggested I wasn't Maori. Apparently I should deny my identity (excuse the sarcasm). Australian's are so far behind with regard to indigenous matters, I feel for the First Australians.
Apart from my sheer exhaustion, finally I left after 3 incidents. 1. Discovering that a fellow friend/student got a casual job with the faculty and had access to my student records. 2. Asking a teacher for an extension for one essay in 2nd yr and receiving a "no" response. 3. Discovering that a fellow student faked their identity (found a friend to sign proof of Aboriginality papers when they were Maori in order to get course funding and help with completing indigenous masters) thereby excluding an Aboriginal Australian from benefiting & some faculty teachers were made aware of this and chose to ignore it.
Reiterating, if you are a young single anglo saxon Australian, with no caring responsibilities, or a demanding work situation, and have no problem with questionable ethical values then UOW is for you. Raiha (pseudonym).