A pathway program provided by NMIT: Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE is giving newly arrived Greek migrants, among many others, the opportunity for a tertiary education. Also aimed at mature aged students, people who completed secondary education and want to further enhance their skills, or those that didn’t finish high school, the Tertiary Studies associate degree and diploma allows students to further explore career or study options in a supportive environment.

Lia Patsakos is now studying a Bachelor of Arts at Monash University, but this nearly didn’t happen due to an illness in year 12 that thwarted her from finishing her secondary education.

“Going to university was a goal in life but it felt very unattainable,” Ms Patsakos tells Neos Kosmos.

“I was at the point where I was writing my resume and realised there was a huge gap missing in my education. I thought back to when I was younger and had aspirations of going to university and did my research and found out about NMIT’s course and things have been amazing since then.”

Subjects covered in the first year focus on building the academic skills required for higher education including academic writing, quantitative reasoning, research skills and critical thinking.

Ms Patsakos believes that by doing this course, students are at an advantage over tertiary students who come to study at a university level straight out of high school. She says her sister, who studied at university straight after high school, found the adjustment difficult. She says the course not only teaches you how to write academically at a university level but also “gears you towards self-motivated and self-directed forms of study”.

“I think one of the main advantages of doing a pre-university entry associate degree or diploma like this is that you’re prepared for the university writing and formatting styles,” says Dr Effie Karageorgos, lecturer, and convener of the topics TER102: Language and Logic: Introduction to Academic Skills and the topic TER105: Creativity and Teamwork at NMIT.

“I know that myself, and other first year students who I’ve taught at other universities, were a little shocked when they realised that university was not just like high school.

“It took a period of adaptation, which often meant that marks went from low to higher in that first year. Doing this course means that this ‘shock’ will not happen – you know what you’re getting when you get to university.”

Students in the pathway programs will also be introduced to arts and social science subjects, both in the first and second year of the program. This includes literature, sociology, history, environmental studies, science and philosophy.

“[The course] has given me an insane amount of self-confidence and re-installed the idea in me that I am capable of pursuing things and going somewhere,” says Mr Patsakos. “Effie [Dr Karageorgos] and all my teachers and coordinators were so endlessly supportive.”

Ms Patsakos says the small class sizes allowed her to have easy access to the teacher and there was more of a “helping each individual person thrive and accommodating for each individual person’s needs”. She says her class was also a mix of ages and cultures, showing the great diversity of the programs.
“There was a great diversity of people attending the course with very different motivations,” she says. “You had mature students who had to put their academic life on hold for children and life and this course is a great bridging course. While it’s very accessible, the standard of the work and the way it’s graded is on par with a first year university degree.”

“It’s good for all migrants – and we’ve had migrants do the course currently and in the past – because the education system varies so widely across the world, as do expectations of university students, so the course will prepare these students for what they may encounter at Australian universities,” says Dr Karageorgos, adding she’s taught a newly arrived migrant from Greece.

“The multicultural and wide-ranging aspects of NMIT are the main reason why I love teaching here – we have students from many different cultures and parts of Melbourne, which means that I not only teach the students but they also provide me with different perspectives.”

Dr Karageorgos says that she stays in touch with her past students to see how they are doing and how the course has helped them.

“I started teaching here a few months after moving to Melbourne in late 2011, and was attracted by the uniqueness of the course and its accessibility to students who were just not in the right head space for Year 12 and perhaps didn’t do as well as they could have, or those who have been away from study for a number of years and want to take that first step towards a new career.”

Because of this course, Ms Patsakos is now in her second year at university and hopes to do Honours and potentially Masters.

“I am hoping to pursue a career in academia,” she says.

“Since we began the Tertiary Studies associate degree and diploma, we’ve had some success stories – one of our students from 2012, our first year, was accepted into LaTrobe, and the research project he completed in his second semester of study here was later published,” says Dr Karageorgos.

“Many of our students are now in Bachelor degrees, which is fantastic to see. It’s very encouraging for our current group of students, that they are capable of achievements like this.”

For more details about these courses visit www.nmit.edu.au/tertiarystudies or call (03) 9269 1390 or email tertiarystudies@nmit.vic.edu.au