Claire Pech – Careers Advisor

UNSW talk part 2

This is important information for current Year 12 students about the UAC process (getting into University)

As I began last week, this is Part 2 of my highlights reel of the UNSW Careers Advisors Day.

There is to be a revamp of the UAC process and how students get into University. These changes will affect our current Year 12 students and future years heading to university. These dates are not official as yet but the process has all been approved and UNSW was given permission to release these details.

For admission for 2018 (our current Year 12 students)

• Most offers will now be made in the December round as opposed to the main round in January, after the ATARs have come out.
• There will not be early offer rounds as the ATARs will be out on 17 December and the universities are going to be offering places as of Thursday 21 December
• There will now only be five preferences allowed. This is very different to the usual nine for previous year groups
  • This will mostly impact high-achieving students who have a tendency to choose up to nine preferences
• The official main round will still be in January, but students will see that most offers will have gone out
• Always accept your offer that you get, as you will only get one offer per round
• If you want to try your luck again, still accept your offer, move your preferences around and remove the preference you were accepted for and go through the system again
• The LAT (Law Admissions Test) is still going ahead for 2017 and beyond:
  • This is a test given to all prospective Law applicants
  • This is in conjunction with the ATAR where an ATAR of 95 and over is now considered with a LAT of 74% and over. The median ATAR for Law in 2016 using the new LAT system was 98 (as opposed to 99.7) so this makes the course more accessible.
  • the LAT focuses on skills essential for a LAW course, e.g. formation of ideas, expression, thinking critically and organising ideas  as opposed to psychometric testing
  • the LAT is a two hour examination, and run through ACER (https://lat.acer.edu.au/)
  • Here is a practice test from last year: lat.acer.edu.au/files/Law_Admission_Test_Sample_Paper_for_Website_2016.pdf
  • Students who would not have had a place offered originally were being admitted – so it has opened the doors 
  • If you sat the LAT in 2016 in Year 11 it is valid for two years
  • The highest LAT result will be used
  • The LAT is held in late September (registrations open from May)
  • www.law.unsw.edu.au/future-students/undergraduate/law-admission-test-lat
  • email any enquiries to lat@unsw.edu.au
  • I would advise students to sit this test in Year 11 even as a practice for the real thing, but also in case you score better in Year 11 and get to keep that score current.

• The new B Vision Science/M Clinical Optometry will not need a UMAT score, and is based on ATAR alone.

UNSW Engineering

There is a focus on working in teams with problem-based learning.

Focusing on Women in Engineering:

• Pushing for a target of 30% in 2020
• There are 17 new industry-funded Women in Engineering scholarships
• Visit madebyme.org.au to try and widen the focus and scope of getting women involved in engineering
• Women in Engineering outreach programs will provide people to come out to speak to future students 

Demystifying Criminology – in the Social Sciences faculty

• The CSI effect has led to lots of students thinking that this is what Criminology is
• It is actually a multi-disciplinary system incorporating:
  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Behavioural science
  • Cultural forces studies.
• Students learn:
  • what is crime?
  • what is white collar crime?
  • what new and emerging crime do we find?
  • what technological issues create crime?
  • street crime
  • how people respond to behaviours
  • about the sentencing reform
  • about public health issues and reducing harm in society.

• A degree in Criminology leads you to jobs and careers in a wide variety of spheres like public health, sentencing reform, Department of Public Prosecutions, courts, policy analysts, advocacy groups, crime analysts and the Department of Corrective Services
• To become a criminologist you can either study the Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice (three years) or study it as a major in an:-
  • Arts degree
  • through Arts and Business or
  • through Psychological Science.

 Careers in Law

• There are 25 undergraduate dual degrees in Law at UNSW
• UNSW always runs dual degrees to keep their graduates more competitive with more career options. There are real increases in the value of law in other settings.
• There is a career service to help students build resumes and helping them maximise their chances of placements.

 Guaranteed entry update from UNSW

The majority of offers for entry into UNSW will be made in December 2017.

• 19,500 guaranteed entries are made via this method
• They have addressed 3,500 enquiries in nine days over the phone lines
• This has been a very successful campaign and very wise marketing tool from UNSW which gives students more choice directly.

Business news

This week we were very fortunate to host three Alumni students, Darren Fine, Craig Fine, Ari Levin and also Ben Cohen from Moriah College. They gave up their precious time to speak with our Year 12 students about life when studying Business/Commerce at university. Two of the speakers were at UTS, and two were at Macquarie University so we were able to get a balanced view of life at each institution, how they manage their studies, and interestingly how they study full-time, and also work full-time in their new and exciting Real Estate careers working for Sothebys and Raine and Horne. They answered many questions about their studies and what stood out was how well they were prepared for their Business degrees by studying Economics and Business Studies at school. Both Craig and Darren said they are still using some of their school HSC notes which they found to be invaluable even in third year at university. They enjoyed connecting with our students, and it was great to see them going from strength to strength in their chosen fields. We wish them all the best in their careers

Darren Fine, Ari Levin, Craig Fine and Ben Cohen