Time for Venting!!!

The Japanese Advisor for exchange is a godsend. She's so nice and helpful and I am so grateful to her. Apparently my subject transfer sheet wasn't as smooth-sailing as I thought it'd be (like last year when I got my subjects for my first preference approved).

According to my [bloody] degree I must transfer 48UOC. Now I thought it was possible to transfer back the very minimum, that is 18UOC per semester, which I had just learnt is possible for normal exchange. NOT Commerce (international). If everything had gone according to my plan would mean that I just had enough to transfer back and not blowout on my HECS. But now, I will have to transfer back more ARTS courses than initially needed without having to do more subjects in Japan that would overload my already considered overloaded amount of courses that I'll be doing over there.

So now I've got my 48UOC that I plan to transfer back all squished into the tiny form. (NB: Exchange office should really restyle the form for subject transfer to suit one year exchanges, i.e. have more lines available and longer boxes.) Now I just need to get my Studies of the Region courses approved so I trek it down all the way back to lower campus to learn that they don't approve SOR courses anymore since 2 weeks ago and that I have to haul myself back up to the ARTS faculty to get it approved. So currently I am venting in between to get my SOR approved and inquire more about what the bloody hell needs to be done for non-english speaking destinations under my degree.

So what's the moral/point I'm trying to convey in this post? Here I'll summarise it:

- if you were enticed to enrol into the Comm (intl) degree because of the exchange requirement it'll be a lot more smoother in the application processes if you apply for an english speaking country, otherwise be prepared to have a higher HECS fee or have your degree plan set out in sem 1 first year
-for comm(intl) INQUIRE everywhere your faculty, the ARTS faculty and exchange office as much as you can in fewer consultations so that you know where you're going
-start your application asap
-be ready to accept any changes they make in regards to the application processes (as these can change often, e.g. I went through 3 exchange advisors in the first stage of the application process)

It's a whole pain in the ass getting everything done and is a looooooong process.... but the light is at the end of the road when you are physically sitting in that plane heading towards your semester/year of adventure

Back to School

Now that it's back to uni one thing that I've been waiting for all summer holidays (minus the Hong Kong trip) was to deal with the next batch of forms of the exchange process (bringing me one step closer to Japan =]). Now that that has arrived I'm not so sure if that excitement is still there...

Here's a checklist of the things I gotta get done by the end of this month:
1. JEASP application form
2. academic transcript from home university
3. letter of nomination from home university
4. Japanese language assessment report
5. letter of reason for study
6. certificate of health
7. accommodation request form
8. personal data form
9. letter to host family and/or dormitory
10. application for certificate of eligibility
11. statement of finance
12. photocopy of passport
13. ID photographs (8 of these!)
14. JASSO certificate of enrolment
15. letter of reason (for JASSO)

and
16. transfer of credit form (another one of these since KGU wasn't my first preference, so will have to arrange appt with the Japanese coordinator and business faculty approval again -____-)

fortunately I won't have to worry bout number 2, 3 and 14 (unless everybody else going to Japan is also going for JASSO and has a much better WAM than me) since exchange office will organise all of those.

On top of this I received an invite to apply for the Douglas Daft scholarship, which (slim chance but) would provide me like $5000AUD if I get it, and is also due the end of this month (31st March).

Also, I've got 3 assessments due in the same week: project management assignment 1, group assignment part 1 for systems analysis and a basic java assessment.

All of these with the homework and readings that's been stocking up since week 1 last week ==>... just sweet...... =___=

PING!! Here's your chance to work on your time management skills! --->yeah right...

First Blog Post..... EVER!

Woah.... I'm gonna label this just like in my java lab this week. My first blog post in blogspot.