Education should be free!
Being realistic can be comforting as you will most likely always be positively surprised — If you are that kind of person who thinks the glass is at least half full. Now and again you might be a bit cocky and set your hopes higher, higher than what seems realistic and logical. Sometimes that results in you being positively surprised that you actually were right, but sometimes reality gives you a swift kick in the arse to tell you that you were dead wrong.
Bond University called yesterday and informed me that I was just a few points short from passing the STAT, so they could not accept me as a bachelor student. Which means my study can not be funded by Lanekassen as they do not fund pathway courses even if it means that I will automatically be accepted to study a bachelor.
I was truly hoping to start my journalism degree in January, but now I do not know what to do. Of course, I will still be looking for work, but beyond that, I am completely lost. It feels like I am some odd state of limbo.
I could of course take the STAT over and over again until I get the score I need, but how much will that cost us in the end? There is always TAFE, but that is not free either.
If we had the money this would not be an issue, but as it costs money to get a university degree here in Australia I am proper fucked.
There is the option that I wait until we are back in Sweden and get my degree there, for free, but when will that be? And how much chance do I have to get a good job as a journalist when I am close to being 40? And I have no intentions on becoming a father when I am busy getting top grades and competing with people half my age to make it in already tough field.
There is the option that I go back to Sweden now and hopefully finish when Lizzie has finished her degree here in Australia, but being so far away from each other has been discussed till ad nauseum, which means it’s not an option.
The only thing I can think of is that I keep on writing, but start contacting newspapers and suggesting that I can write for them for free to prove myself. If they don’t like my writing I can at least say I have been published and show that I am willing to go that extra mile to get what I want to other media outlets.
Or I could just get a lobotomy and get some mindless job and become clinically apathetic.
It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.
- HST
… or you could start by posting on ezine about things you’re clued-up about. If you have a field of expertise – a hobby for example – you might consider writing a manual about it. In my super-short experience of being a small publisher I have already discovered that fact books sell a LOT faster than fiction. To boot, if you know what you’re talking about they are easier to write. Try it, go for it!
Awesome! I’ll look into that for sure. Thanks for the tip!