kellydaniel76

please help!! im soo confused?? im new to this site and just wondered if anyone can help me. Me and my husband are thinking about migrating to Oz in three yrs time. i am due to start a psychology degree in england in september, so would like to finish that here first. i want to become a neuropsychologist later in life. i have breifly looked at the universitys in oz, and without emailing them i was unsure. do you get Uni loans over there like you do here? and if i complete my first degree here in three years, would it be as simple as to apply for uni over there if i get the residency in that time also? and is planning this move for three years to long?? thanks kelly and daniel

kellydaniel76

also, if the husband works as machanic, and i find part time work out there whilst in uni, is it worth the move? can it be comfortable, am i making the right choice for my 9 yr old daughter in thinking she will have a better life out there than here?? thanks

Weebie

Student debt is only available to residents but it's possible to finance your degree from the UK. You will be paying international student fees which at the current exchange rate will be expensive.

You'll be beable to work 20 hours a week.

louie

You have to be a citizen to qualify for HECS - http://www.goingtouni.gov.au/Main/Qu...s/HECSHELP.htm

kellydaniel76

not sure if ive not explained myself clearly, but we are looking to migrate to oz after 3 yrs time, we want a better quality of life for our daughter. so obviously if and when we get the correct visa, i would then be an australian citizen no? im thinking i can then apply as a student as i want to carry on with my education whist living in oz. i want to make a complete new life for the three of us out there. would i be entitled to student finace or a scholarship? also one other thing... do most ppl buy/rent their properties before they arrive in oz? what do you do? go on a trip there and talk to someone about renting a house from them? or can it all be done online this end? as we have no friends or family over there to help us? what is the plan of action? what with arranging schools etc?? eeeek!!!!

Pollyana

No, you wouldn't be a citizen. Even if you get a Permanent Resident visa straight away (rather than a temporary one) you will still have to get 4 years residency in Australia behind you before you can apply for citizenship.

Have a read of www.immi.gov.au for visa info and www.citizenship.gov.au for the process of becoming a citizen.

HelenTD

1. You are entitled to HECS-HELP if you are a citizen. You can become a citizen if you have the appropriate visa and have lived here for 4 years. See http://www.goingtouni.gov.au/Main/Qu...s/HECSHELP.htm and http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applyi...l_app_process/.

2. There are some scholarships available for students coming from overseas as well as domestic students. Search on BE for recent threads. There are stipends for those doing a PhD (I think they are about $25k/yr for 3 years).

3. Look up the Australian Psychological Society website to find out more about the training and qualifications. There can be quite strong competition for postgrad or honours places. Here is the link for clinical neuropsychology http://www.psychology.org.au/communi...clinicalneuro/ but there are various other specialist areas.

4. Certainly, clinical psychologists can earn an enormous amount of money here, but it does take years of training. You need to look carefully at the training options for neuropsychology in the UK and compare to what's available in Australia in terms of quality and expertise.

5. Studying full-time is tough, add in part-time work and it becomes very tough. Add in being a mum and wife, and it becomes tougher again. You would need to consider how much your OH would earn as a mechanic to see if you could survive on his income.

6. It is way too early to be worrying about accommodation and schools. Everyone manages to find somewhere to live and a school for their children. It might not be good quality, though. The cost of living here in hotly debated on BE, and you do not necessarily end up with a better quality of life.

Good luck with all your research.

quoll

You have been given some good advice here. I would ask - what does your "better life" for your daughter look like? Australia is just another first world country with first world problems and in 3 years it could be (and with this government will be) in a worse position than it is now. There is nothing magical about it, you still have to work to pay the rent, do the shopping, cope with the school and bullies, put the rubbish out and save up for a rainy day.

Psychologists are ten a penny here so there is no guarantee that it will be on any state's list of occupations in demand and as a new graduate you wouldnt fit the bill anyway - you would have to be registerable. At the moment you need a 4 year degree and 2 year internship to be able to practice and I suspect by the time you get here it will be 5 years plus internship. A Masters here is going to knock you back at least $10k pa as a domestic student. If you are wanting to do it as an international student then you would be looking at closer to $40k pa. Most people I know have had to self fund, scholarships are highly competitive. You would be far better to finish your training in UK I reckon.

If you arent happy with the area you are living in, perhaps you could consider another area in Britain as a stopgap measure - there are millions of UK kids growing up happy and healthy with good prospects, with a loving family around them, you dont need to move across the world to a foreign country to find your better life.

When you begin your psych studies, you might want to find the shift key on your computer as well - it's good practice to write the way you will have to write for uni and makes your script easier to read and good luck with your studies!

Dorothy

As always, Quoll, your advice is excellent. I agree with everything you've written 100%. Just a quick note, though. When I said the same thing to someone else asking about studying nursing at age 35 I got shot down in flames. Apparently it's not PC to give advice on writing skills when people are asking about going to uni here.

gmralston

+1

quoll

Hmm, yes, I know and I did think about it but forewarned is forearmed I reckon and if you can get into the right frame of decent writing in pretty much every genre then it wont come so hard when you are wrestling with all sorts of other abstract concepts. Practice bad habits and they become entrenched bad habits and so much more difficult to extinguish (psych 101!)

Nate4

I plan on heading to Australia for early 2012 and the majority of the funding for this trip will come from a student loan from my home province.

Weebie

Psychology is probably the one of the most common degree in Aus these days

Shellyj

You cant get British student loans for overseas study unless it forms part of a course at a British university.

gmralston

I thought that too. The use of the word province leads me to think that he/she is not referring to the UK