Griffith B of Mid

[mama_supha]

No early round offer here

[~mamaspice~]

how do you know? It's not the 3rd yet!

[~mamaspice~]

Oh, I see, just went into the qtac site and checked it out. No early offer here either . . .

[hj1981]

no early offer here either :-(

[mama_supha]

Sorry to hear that Mara and HJ............crossing fingers and toes for you for 17th Dec offer! Does anyone one know how it works with the december 17th offer, is it offers made after they see who accepts the dec 2 offers??

[bon]

I got an offer yay me.

I actually got the email about it at about 5 yesterday arvo, so it came early. I have until the 11th of December to respond with either a yes, or a request to defer.

[~mamaspice~]

How awesome Bon! Thats great news! Congratulations!

I went to SCU's info day today (they are my second pref behind Griffith) and their course structure will just be waayyy too hard. Especially because I need to work part time. The way that they structure it is 2 weeks intensive on campus each trimester (they work in trimesters not semesters) followed by 3-6 weeks of fulltime placements each trimester. Plus one of 2 days on campus for the remaining 20 odd weeks of their academic year.
I'm starting to think that ACU part time would be more do-able than SCU. Bon, I'd love to hear anything you can tell me about the current course structure at ACU. I'm pretty sure they allow PT now don't they? When I got a place in the 2008 round at ACU I was told it was fulltime only and that you HAD to attend all lectures and the timetable I'd received indicated I had to be on campus 5 days a week. But I think it might be different now.

[bon]

Mara I emailed them before I applied earlier this year and I was told you can choose part time. I think you have to speak to a course advisor so they can help you work out your course plan though. From what I gather there are no clinicals until 2nd semester and you do a block of about 2 weeks in first year. There are follow throughs too, but I don't know much about that. When I was in hospital having Isabel I actually met some mid students from ACU doing their prac. That was in September. There were some on the ward and then there was another one who was working with the home midwife when she did our home visit.

I am still debating whether to just accept the offer and see what happens. DH isn't being much help. one minute he is saying I should do it and the next minute he is saying he doesn't want bubba to be in daycare. Sigh.

[Ilithyia]

Hi Ladies,

I've been reading through some of your posts and thought I would pop in and answer some of the questions re ACU.

Part-time is obviously being offered as they have stipulated this on their website. However, as a full-time student you can organise you timetable to only have to be there 3 days a week max. But you just have to get in early to get the good times.

Lectures ARE NOT compulsary. Tutorials and Labs are. Labs require a 100% attendance however if you miss a lab you can usually make it up in another time. Tutorials are 80% attendance.

There is no prac until 2nd Semester which goes for up to 6 weeks. And follow-throughs don't commence until this time also. On prac you may rotate between antenatal clinic/ward, postnatal ward, Midwifery Group Practice, Community and Gynae. However you may not rotate and all and be like some of us and be on the same postnatal ward the whole time.

I won't lie to you. Prac is FULL ON! Its only Monday to Friday however you may be allocated a day or night shift.

The Maters shifts are - Day: 6.30am - 3.15pm. Night: 2.30pm - 10.45pm. Late: 10.30pm - 7.15am.

My rotation was Days. Nights. Days and then i was lucky enough to finish the 2 weeks on days! And none of us ever had to do a late shift.

I will give you a bit of heads up in relation to the support from Uni staff etc - Don't expect too much help and support. A lot of us felt like we were thrown in the deep end and left to swim. I am quite bitter about that coming out of the first year.

My recommendation - Mingle with your fellow students. Best thing EVER! Because most of the women in the course were Mums and all in the same situation (and because by the time the census date comes around there are only about 50 students left) we all supported each other really well.

I'm not entirely sure how much the course structure will change next year but this is how it goes this year:

1st Semester:
BIOL117 - Applied Science for Practice 1 (All your Biology and Anatomy stuff - Fairly hard)

NRSG120 - Indigenous Culture and Health (An eye opening subject - Pretty Easy if you listen)

NRSG121 - Context of Nursing 1 (The Nursing subject where you learn basic nursing skills ie Bed making, taking blood pressure etc etc - Fairly hard)

NRSG127 - Beginning the Journey (Midwifery Subject) (Bascially learn about Legislations etc etc - Fairly Easy)

2nd Semester:
BIOL118 - Applied Science for Practice 2 - Continuing on from 1st Semester

NRSG122 - Exploring Professional Practice (Law and Ethics) - I found this boring as $hit and didnt attend 1 lecture. If your not going to attend lectures, really study out of the text book. Tutorials are compulsary and will be VERY beneficial if your not going to attend lectures.

NRSG113 - The Childbearing Journey - This is where the stuff WE LOVE to learn about starts. I loved it. We have a Lecture, Tute and Lab for this subject. Tutes are about a Case Study which progresses week to week. An Oral presentation is required as an assessment. In Labs we learn how to do Abdominal Palpations and Drug Calcs. You will be assessed on these alone and it is a pass or fail. No in between. You must pass these to be able to go on prac. You also learn about labour and birth. Infant feeding ie breast and formula. Etc etc.

NRSG115 - Practice Connections - Clinical Placement which begins mid September. On prac you are only allowed to do what you have learnt at Uni. You will be given a list of the duties you can do which include: Bed Making, Baby Bath Demo (Assessment on Prac), Formula Feeding Demo (Assessment on Prac), TPR (Temp, Pulse and Resp), Blood Pressure, Wound Care, NNST - Neonatal Screening Test (or heel pr ick test) (Assessment on Prac), Oral Meds under direct supervison of RN/RM. DONT DO ANYTHING THAT IS NOT ON THE LIST!!! A couple of us did and we got into trouble as it is out of your scope of practice.

Well I think thats pretty much all I can tell you off the top of my head. Sorry there is so much info!!!

Feel free to email me at doulasara@hotmail.com if you have any further questions.

I have Unit Outlines for all subjects I can email you if you like. And I also have a timetable which I can email from both Semesters.

Good luck to you all and I hope we all get what we want!
x

[~mamaspice~]

Thanks for being so informative Sara

I know you don't know much about PT but I'm guessing that if clinicals aren't til the end of semester 2 fulltime then for part time, clinicals prob wouldn't commence til semester 2 in the second year? About how many hours do you usually put aside per week for study/assignments etc at home?

I know you must be in a hard situation Bon, I'll be in the same situation if I decide to have bub #2 B4 I start uni. But FWIW DD has been in daycare since 11 months and she absolutely LOVES it! The major downside is they do pick up every virus under the sun, but if you can find a daycare and carer that you are happy with it probably wouldn't be soo bad. In fact i think here might be a casual daycare near the Uni. Give them a call and ask.

PS: sara, would live to get a copy of your timetable. I hope you got my PM with email details.

[bon]

Thanks for the info Sara. I have looked at the 2010 enrolment guide and some of the subjects (or at least their names) have changed. I have already done anatomy and physiology and the foundation nursing subject in my Bachelor of Nursing course, so I will be applying credit for those, but I would still love to get the subject outlines just to make sure it correlates with what I have already done. The timetables would be great too - they don't release the 2010 timetables until 21 December, by which time I have to have accepted the offer, so I can't even wait for the timetables to come out to work out if it will be do-able before I accept or decline. I will PM you with my email addy

I am still hoping that I might be able to work something out for bub, I do have a couple of friends (SAHMs) who may be open to the idea of babysitting her for me while I am at uni - I would just really prefer if she was over 12 months before I put her into child care. The older kids are fine - two of them will be in school, and at 3 years old Matilda would probably enjoy a couple of days in child care.
Anyway, I have a week or so to work it out.

[Ilithyia]

No worries Ladies. Glad I could help out!

I am still hoping that I might be able to work something out for bub, I do have a couple of friends (SAHMs) who may be open to the idea of babysitting her for me while I am at uni - I would just really prefer if she was over 12 months before I put her into child care. The older kids are fine - two of them will be in school, and at 3 years old Matilda would probably enjoy a couple of days in child care.
Anyway, I have a week or so to work it out.

Family Day Care is the key!!!

I had both my girls in FDC while I was at Uni and they LOVED it!!!!

There are plenty of FDC Mum's in Brisbane.

[hj1981]

Bon - woohoooooo congratulations!

Sara - wow thanks heaps! as always ur a great help and very imformative!

[~mamaspice~]

I have changed my second pref from SCU to ACU. Even with the 1 hour distance to ACU if I did a part time study load, it would be do-able.

Thanks again for the info Sara.

hj, have you got ACU as a second pref?

[hj1981]

yep ACU is my second preference! Ooooo maybe we can do uni together next year!!!

[~mamaspice~]

yep ACU is my second preference! Ooooo maybe we can do uni together next year!!!

With the same ranking we're likely to both be at one or the other together

[hj1981]

i really hope so! dont know about u but i think it would be great to do it with some one i kinda know! ;-)

Im so worried im not even going to get an offer tho!

[Ella]

Hey girls,
Just thought I would pop my head in here. I was doing a Bachelor of Nursing at the Nathan campus of Griffith bu stopped when PG with DS as I was too sick. I've now decided to go back and finish the course, but wanted to ask something.

My original plan was to do my BN so that no matter what I could always work as a nurse and then go on to do the Midwifery post-grad fter, but I'm just thinking now, what would you suggest... going the long way or just trying to get an internal transfer into Midwifery????v How much time am I going to end up saving?

Ella