Scholarship or stay at home? (1 Viewer)

[suling]

So today I got offered a Merit Scholarship at ANU -$6500 a year.

I was wondering how important your undergraduate degree really is: I am planning on (eventually) becoming an academic historian. My idea was to complete my bachelor degree at UNE as it means I can stay at home, and then complete my Masters and eventually PhD at ANU after that. Is this plausible for my career choice, or would I be greatly advantaged by going to ANU for my bachelors?

I have not applied for accomodation or anything at ANU as I never expected to be offered a scholarship -I cannot defer it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[janchanisek]

ANU being the top ranked uni in australia and having close proximity to national capital resources, i think it would be the better option in the long run, even just for undergrad, even if it means moving out etc... especially considering you have a scholarship! =D
congratz btw! =]

 

[Studentleader]

I'm moving to Canberra if I get into ANU next year so I have a few things to say.

1) Rent is fucking ridiculous in Canberra - you won't get your own apartment in Inner North for less than $400 a week (how ever sharing/housing at uni is a bit cheaper.)
2) You will probably spend about $20k a year and you won't get Centrelink until you have been independant for 1.5 years (I'm not sure how centrelink operates.)

Unless you are on Youth Allowance it would be very hard to get there.

 

[suling]

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm not too focused about rankings honestly, more about whether UNE is still going to get me where I need to go (i.e. Masters at ANU). Moving out seems daunting since I haven't planned for it. If I'm not going to be disadvantaged too greatly through not going to ANU, then I'm pretty happy to stay where I am -even with all the crap I get for choosing UNE.

 

[ajdlinux]

I know a history student at ANU who did his undergrad at UNE and moved to ANU for his masters or PhD or whatever he's doing now. UNE's a reasonably respectable place, if you do well there you'll have no problems going where you want for postgrad studies.

Also, moving out may seem daunting, but once you've done it, you realise it's not really that big a deal.

 

[mmm_brrraains]

Congrats on the scholarship, that's brilliant!

Where you do your undergrad doesn't matter if you're talking about university rankings (others may disagree), but it kinda does matter in some respects, especially if you're wanting to go onto postgraduate study and eventually into academia.

Have a look at the course guides for both UNE and ANU, and look at the different courses (i.e. the subjects you will take each semester) that are available for the major/majors you are interested in. Here's a link you've probably already seen for ANU: http://www.anu.edu.au/sas/handbook/index.php If you have a pretty good idea of what aspect of history it is that interests you most, you should see which university will allow you to gain the best grounding in that area. For example, I've just finished Honours in Archaeology at ANU, which is (arguably) the best university in the country for archaeology. However, if I was more interested in the Ancient Egypt aspect of arch, I'd be an idiot if I didn't choose to go to Macquarie instead since they have the best program in that subject.

So have a look at the different study options and then decide what is best for you based on what you're interested in, not what people who like to be snobby about universities tell you. If you enjoy and do well in your undergrad then being accepted for postgrad somewhere is almost a given.

This post is getting a little tl;dr, but just wanted to comment on a couple of things others have said.

1) Rent is fucking ridiculous in Canberra - you won't get your own apartment in Inner North for less than $400 a week (how ever sharing/housing at uni is a bit cheaper.)

Yes, rent's expensive in Canberra, but unless you have some kind of sweet trust fund arrangement it's a bit unrealistic to expect to be able to afford to rent somewhere on your own while you're a student. You can get a room in a decent place pretty close to uni for between $100 - 150 per week. http://housingonline.anu.edu.au/Accomm/Renting/dcsasummary.php

accommodation is guaranteed at anu, so dw about that.

Yes, but you still need to apply for it.

 

[Studentleader]

Congrats on the scholarship, that's brilliant!
Yes, rent's expensive in Canberra, but unless you have some kind of sweet trust fund arrangement it's a bit unrealistic to expect to be able to afford to rent somewhere on your own while you're a student. You can get a room in a decent place pretty close to uni for between $100 - 150 per week. http://housingonline.anu.edu.au/Accomm/Renting/dcsasummary.php

Yeah I am going to look at some places from that site when I come over in early Feb with my Girlfriend - trying to find a 2 bedroom is pretty daunting though.

 

[suling]

Thanks everyone!

I think I am going to take a trip down to ANU as soon as I can after Christmas, then I will decide. I am also going to talk to the careers department at UNE who will hopefully be able to tell me if the course I have chosen will allow me to get into certain courses later etc. (as it's not specifically an arts degree, but is just focused on history/historiography).

This has been really helpful.

 

[Studentleader]

Thanks everyone!

I think I am going to take a trip down to ANU as soon as I can after Christmas, then I will decide. I am also going to talk to the careers department at UNE who will hopefully be able to tell me if the course I have chosen will allow me to get into certain courses later etc. (as it's not specifically an arts degree, but is just focused on history/historiography).

This has been really helpful.

Best of luck!

P.S personally I'd stay away from specialist courses as an undergrad - I'd do 4 subject areas in your first year (mine were computer science, maths, economics and accounting) - you don't know what your missing out on.

 

[mmm_brrraains]

Because when you apply for a PhD, they say 'Oh you have an awesome research proposal, and we could easily secure funding for you, but you went to a university that's ranked 50th, not 30th, so we had to fund the other guy first'. I've talked to multiple people about this, and decided it's not an issue - and I'm not talking about comparing ANU and UNSW for example, but even when there's a reasonably large difference e.g. between Princeton and UNSW.

Rankings matter somewhat when you're IN graduate school, because thats pretty much what rankings focus on. Graduate Schools. So take them into account when you look at which graduate school you want to apply to.

I should have explained myself better. I just meant that if you want to do postgrad in a particular discipline, you might want to try to use your undergrad to gain the best background you can in that area. Teaching staff have varied research interests, and so the courses you are able to do (in the Humanities at least) tends to reflect the areas of expertise of the faculty.

With regards to PhD apps and securing funding, the way it works at ANU is that a committee look at your academic record, your Honours grade (if you did honours, that is), your referee reports, your research proposal and any extras you've got like a Masters, or peer-reviewed publications and then use these data to rank you among all other PhD applicants applying to the university. If you're above the magic cut-off you'll get funding.

Didn't mean to imply that you have to go to a 'prestigious' uni to have a chance of getting accepted to postgrad, whoops!

 

[Studentleader]

With regards to PhD apps and securing funding, the way it works at ANU is that a committee look at your academic record, your Honours grade (if you did honours, that is), your referee reports, your research proposal and any extras you've got like a Masters, or peer-reviewed publications and then use these data to rank you among all other PhD applicants applying to the university. If you're above the magic cut-off you'll get funding.

Or you just get H1A in mathematics and get an instant PhD scholarship for $35k a year.

 

[mmm_brrraains]

Or you just get H1A in mathematics and get an instant PhD scholarship for $35k a year.

Lol, my APA is now feeling a bit inadequate. It must be bloody hard to get first class honours in mathematics then if they're able to throw that kind of money around. If only my talents lay in mathematics instead of archaeology!

 

[Studentleader]

Lol, my APA is now feeling a bit inadequate. It must be bloody hard to get first class honours in mathematics then if they're able to throw that kind of money around. If only my talents lay in mathematics instead of archaeology!

Everyone one of my friends with honours has H1A - just a matter of remembering theorms (really boring.)
In terms of thesis' my friend got a 90+ mark by simply writing a paper which serves to introduce the topic and playing around with some matricies to get 3 individual research results.

 

[xeuyrawp]

no-one cares where you go for undergraduate, seriously.

I agree with that, however that doesn't meant that you shouldn't care where you go for undergrad. Whilst undergrad is quite superficial in terms of content, it's an important stage of your career.

Lol, my APA is now feeling a bit inadequate. It must be bloody hard to get first class honours in mathematics then if they're able to throw that kind of money around. If only my talents lay in mathematics instead of archaeology!

Congrats on the APA.

 

[xeuyrawp]

Sorry, what I was getting at is that other people's perception of your university's reputation should not affect your decision to attend, especially if it has the exact courses/research programs/opportunities/scholarships you want.

Yeah of course, I just wanted to make sure what you were saying is clear.

Where I did my undergrad is usually more of a punch line for jokes when I'm talking with people in my field now.