Investments in Learning

My daughter, very conscientious human that she is, signed up to do some extra study during the holidays to prepare herself for her VCE exams that are coming up. She applied to a well known University about 150kms away. She woke early on Monday morning and caught the train, only to get a phonecall on her mobile about an hour before the course was due to start, to say they had overbooked and they didn’t have a spot for her. She had arranged accomodation for herself for the three days in the city and was well organised. The uni have debited the money for this course from the Visa card and although it is three days later, no refund has appeared. She was quite devastated.
I was altogether unsurprised and others I have discussed this with have expressed a similar belief that universities in general are not the best at customer service. As courses become more expensive I find myself wondering if it is all worth it.
Interestingly I read this today:What’s the ROI on an MBA When You’re in the SEO Industry?. I hope people begin to question more, what is the return on the investment.
I have attended uni, tafe, adult education and lots of privately ran courses. I am a bit of a course addict actually, or at least I was until I started blogging:-). I honestly found my uni course to be the least quality or ROI. I guess that peice of paper one needs for many professions, that is only available at a uni, is the edge they have. As far the actual learning though or the growth gained, uni’s didn’t rate for me.
I guess I am just always cranky when people are not treated with respect.

Latest YA Reading #2

Have just completed a couple of books quite quickly really. My son recommended to me Will by Maria Boyd. He loved it and I can see why. It was funny, current and dealt with grief. He (my son) quoted from it at a family dinner discussion when he felt I was stereotyping. I love it when he does that kind of thing. Makes me feel he is literate:-). I enjoyed it too.
The other book was Helicopter Man by Elizabeth Fensham, which won the Children’s Book Council of Australia award this year for younger readers. It had a similar theme as No Worries in some ways. I won’t go into it and spoil it for would be readers, but it too was enjoyable.

Camille

I heard this artist on triple J so many times on my way to work and it has taken incredible effort to track down the name. I can’t find much online about her but I discovered this clip on YouTube

Enjoy, I hadn’t seen the clip, I quite like the naked knitting theme in the video. There is another cool clip of the song but can’t put it here, so if you’re interested click here. It’s playful and I really like it.