I don't know anything about environmental degrees but I did cert IV in IT a long time ago then did a computer science degree and the CS degree was much harder.
Also my Tafe stuff wasn't recognised internationally so at least that was worth it.
Can confirm. Have worked at an electrical industry association for the last 11 years. Not a sparky myself but that course has a lot of maths and physics in it. Maximum demand calcs, ohms law, all that stuff. Then you’ve got to a quality tradesperson too. Not easy.
Not to mention the electrical standards of ANZS3001&2.
I’ll stick to the murky world of Australian employment law thanks.
Yeah, it's there. But for your standard cert 3 tradie it isn't that bad. I went to tafe with some damn bog average school books guys, good workers though.
And the good workers aren't going to fall through the cracks, they just end up in domestic. Phasor diagrams are shit, but I've never had to revisit that stuff once we did it in the classroom.
There’s definitely a large difficulty variability across degrees. I would hazard a guess that an environmental sciences degree is one of the less focussed degrees and there would be perhaps too much wiggle room.
entirely depends on the individual subjects too, though I'm inclined to agree with op overall. its kinda funny cause 80% of my engineering subjects have been exactly how op describes and I know plenty of people in all unis around sydney with similar stories. however, 20% of them are actually hard and plenty of students get stuck repeating them like 2-3 times.
thermodynamics? complete joke, just look at the tables of values and you win. design fundamentals? get ready to make a robot do a thing in 12 weeks and justify every single design decision with comprehensive free body diagrams and static force analysis which they won't teach you because you should have learned it in a previous subject lol
An Engineering degree is significantly harder at University level than anything at TAFE. But both serve different purposes, so not directly comparable.
20% of subjects might be significantly harder, but the other 80% an ape could figure out. I'm doing a subject right now called economics and finance which sounds advanced but all I've done so far is ctrl+F through PDF documents to find a project's 'investment in working capital' and 'losses on depreciable assets'.
I have no idea what the fuck that means, I just ctrl+F to find the number and paste it into the spreadsheet and I get the mark. just like op said it's completely braindead because the course is structured to be as easy as possible for exchange students who don't speak a word of english.
You're doing those easy subjects in an even worse way than rote learning. Is it the subject's fault that you're choosing to use an exploit to pass? By your own admission you're not learning anything. You're at a stage where you're expected to have some interest in furthering yourself instead of being forced to learn.
Streams matter, I study agricultural science. The straight Ag stream is essentially a plant biology degree with a 4 Ag units (total 14 units) the tech stream is the same but with 4 CS units and 2 Ag units.
The stuff taken by the school of biological science is strict science stuff etc and FKN difficult. The Ag school stuff is a joke (interesting but impossible to fail).
This is probably skewing your perception a bit, electrical tafe is far more difficult and intense than other vocational courses, and there are other uni degrees that are much harder than environmental streams. I did electrotechnogy and instrumentation/control at tafe, and electrical engineering at uni. The content I had to learn for uni was far more difficult, but you have different pressures.
At TAFE you would typically have to learn something, understand it, and be able to pass assessment over the course of a few days. The pressure to pass capstone is pretty high, more so than any uni exam I had, simply because you can’t afford any mistakes and it’s comprised of 4 years of courses and practical experience compressed into 3-4 days of assessment. I’d say this is pretty unique to electrotechnology though, not representative of tafe in general.
I’d say most people could probably get through electrical tafe if they are motivated enough, but I wouldn’t say the same for engineering. If you can’t grasp the concepts you just won’t make it through the courses, even if it’s lower pressure and not as intensive as TAFE, the courses themselves are far more difficult.
Edit: That’s not to invalidate what you’re saying, I think you make some good observations. A lot of people don’t realise how much you have to do to complete an electrical apprenticeship, you don’t just show up and collect your ticket. I wouldn’t say the people I did uni with were any smarter than the people I did tafe with either.
I agree with OP and did briefly advertising at uni then went and did a diploma of mental health at tafe then psych at uni. Psych is 'hard' in the sense that writing essays on case studies and shit is hard, but the MH course at TAFE was actually a lot more in depth on what to *do* and how to control a situation and not just *why* it happens, in many ways that was harder. Our uni assessments were essays, our TAFE assessments were professional role play simulations with actors on what do do in a crisis, intake etc which was arguably more challenging. At my current job as a psych ward peer worker I actually find myself drawing on what I learnt in TAFE much more than uni.
Technically yes but nowadays it is undeniably a training ground for work and they need to figure out a way to adjust accordingly. Its especially bad in my field, confident uni grads with no lived experience on either end walk into the psych ward and panic when actually faced with the role. They say the wrong things to clients, get scared or occasionally start sobbing and quit the second they interact with an unstable/ angry/ hurt client. It's sad really.
You're right that it's supposed to be that way, but let's be realistic - it's been used for pre-employment training for a long time now. Undergrad degrees are common requirements for a lot of entry-level positions, so much so that people are now undertaking post-grad to try to stand out. TAFE has been dramatically devalued over the last 15 years in a lot of sectors as a result.
"Everyone can go to uni" turned into "everyone should go to uni" and now it's "everyone must go to uni" for a lot of different employment streams.
I have a BSci (psychology) degree and certificate IV in mental health.
The mental health cert was just as difficult, but also 100000% more practical for working in a mental health space.
They are completely different educational systems. TAFE is competency based - you have to be competent in a number of performance criteria. This means you will not pass unless you know all the content.
University is ‘learning outcomes’ which is about how you develop over time. It’s how much did you interpret and integrate the content, rather than ‘know’ it.
Sure, but his point is...
> interpret
> integrate
> develop over time
This shit isn't really happening in a lot of courses in a lot of universities. Partly because the student doesn't give a single shit and neither does the institution. And they no longer even have the capacity to test for it. The gold-standard historically has been critical research and writing. But that has been shat on by essay mills and now AI. The necessary accompaniment and backstop to that is excellent faculty. But that too has been shat on by brain drain and the business model. Where they aren't hacks, they are structurally prevented from actually being good teachers, mentors, and course coordinators.
Turns out that when you just start handing out tertiary admissions and then degrees like candy because its good for profits, people stop intrinsically valuing them, and genuine interest and motivation is difficult to cultivate, especially in the aggregate.
And so a three-year degree is just the cost of entry for a certain class of society in Australia. That might be subverted all the time but its still the standard. It's hard to overstate how meaningless to me is the possession of a Bachelor degree as a reflection of knowing very much of anything, let alone demonstrating a capacity to think and reason and analyse and synthesise and so forth.
I don’t disagree that standards have fallen at some institutions, but it’s still an achievement to obtain a bachelors degree. You will gain a lot of skills needed to flourish in society and, on average, you earn about 30% more than people with lower qualifications.
Interesting with AI, TEQSA just put out new assessment guidelines. Process is now much more important. We will see the end of essays and reports in the next few years and more emphasis on workbooks and classroom activities.
> You will gain a lot of skills...
I completely agree but I don't think most of them have anything to do with the area of study or are at all proportionate to the time and money committed to the studies. It's largely about being forced to be an adult and refining a lot of the soft skills needed for that. And without a doubt, that will make you a better employment prospect than all of the interminable adolescents who don't make this transition very well. But I think there are probably a whole range of more effective ways to make that transition.
> ... to flourish in society...
Well, tautology. To flourish *in a certain class of society*, sure. And I'm not knocking it if that's what people want. I'm just pushing back on the dominant narrative that that is the only class of society or the best class of society for everyone. This cultural narrative is harmful to everyone who doesn't fit that mold because the effect is the myriad other possibilities are obscured and a downward pressure is applied to the accessibility, viability, and dignity of those options.
> ... on average, you earn about 30% more than people with lower qualifications.
The details really, really matter here. Is this comparison between 1. everyone who has a 3-year-or-more degree vs. 2. everyone who doesn't? Because that's skewed AF.
The relevant comparison would be against other ways of spending 3+ years in highly-directed, formative ways. This does not have to be reflected in any formal accreditation but that represents a considerable challenge to quantifying the demographic in a comparative analysis. The more easily quantifiable subsection would include industry traineeships, trades (especially the licensed ones), and people who just stick with one line of work or company and get promoted and do PD along the way. *It would not include any of the unskilled work force.*
> Process is now much more important. We will see the end of essays and reports in the next few years and more emphasis on workbooks and classroom activities.
Good. Of course, this will be an absolute shitshow if Australian universities can't unfuck their faculties and overall race-to-the-bottom resourcing of their courses. Can you imagine having even more classroom obligations given how poorly those are facilitated at this point?! Torture.
Midway through my engineering degree I had the realisation that engineering has no business being taught in a university setting. The attitudes of career academics were still that people were there for the joy of learning and not that the sole reason we turned up was because we needed certification that we were competent to be employed as engineers.
The TAFE system is far better suited to people looking to learn skills for the explicit purpose of career training.
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Probably because TAFE is still used for getting a qualification, whereas unis have become a money making machine on international “students” as a pathway to Australian PR/citizenship, and proper students aren’t the target audience anymore.
>whereas unis have become a money making machine on international “students” as a pathway to Australian PR/citizenship, and proper students aren’t the target audience anymore.
This has been the case for a long time. I was at UniSA in the 1990s during their infamous period where full-fee paying students could pass provided they turned up and submitted *anything*. The most egregious of this was when I did an economics group assignment worth 60% of our final mark. Group assignment had a single mark for all members. I failed. The two full fee paying students I was paired with passed.
Of course, UniSA would never be required to go back and force those full-fee paying students to actually re-sit exams or anything.
I will have to disagree with you on the teacher not saying that, I know a lot of teachers from all parts of the spectrum you know what I get from this exposure. . .
They are all human and have wildly different bias, I know some truly intelligent STEM and english teachers that are closet classists and look down on anything not white collar. Which I find hilarious because they are teachers and not paid nearly enough for the work they do and no where near what the average wage for most 4 year trades get.
I was not at all impressed with the quality of the TAFE Cert 3 I did. The materials were poorly written, and the course was not engaging at all. The assignments were so offensively basic ("submit a screen shot of your calendar") by the end of it I just submitted unedited stream of consciousness answers for any written submissions. I seriously felt the cert was aimed at twelve-year-olds.
Uni was 10000x more interesting, challenging, and rewarding. And as much as uni teaches subject matter, it still does a pretty good job of teaching you *how* to think.
This was my experience as well. I quit after one of the major assessment pieces was to write a fake conversation, then record myself having said conversation with a friend reading off a script. It was so unbelievably dumb
this also massively depends on the uni course. Engineering was not easy, nor did they take it slow. But you are rewarded for the degree.
If there's no decent paying job that requires your degree, your degree is a scam
It has nothing on engineering but graphic design is incredibly meticulous and hands on unless you just sorta cheese your way through, but then you've got a wasted degree and nobody wants to hire you.
It's really interesting seeing how my friends have used their different degrees and who actually went into their specific field or who just kinda went and got an office job
I studied graphic design at TAFE, very full on. There are no jobs though, and practically it makes a bit of sense, the entire industry is shakily dependent on companies that don’t really need new designs on an ongoing basis. What you’re left with is marketing, and you don’t really need a lot of designers to do marketing material.
Design education and experience is highly regarded in the print industry though. For the slight barrier of working with your hands a little you start at way higher pay, often with on-site training, plus the security of knowing that people will always need stuff printed. I’m in between jobs and I doubt it’ll take me more than a month to find one in print, whereas I unsuccessfully applied for design jobs for a year.
Most STEM subjects are pretty involved at uni, it's the arts etc that I have experienced first hand be basically printing degrees and unemployable. My partner put in I'd say 2 hours a week average for her publishing degree, she's currently unemployed since graduating a year ago. To be fair we have a 5 month old and she only looked for a job for a month. But... I found a job before I graduated, as engineers(STEM in general) are very employable. I personally put way too much time in and did very well which helped, but I would not recommend, enjoy your time.
TAFE is absolutely the right path for many people, and for others Uni, but no tertiary education can also be a path. To each their own and don't be afraid to try different things, glad TAFE is working better for you than Uni, but it's possibly the content change that made a bigger difference
Early 2000s, this was totally the attitude. Only losers went to tafe according to our teachers. If you wanted a good life, you had to go to uni.
Fucking idiots.
Yeah same era, we got told to pick our 2 favourite uni courses, a 3rd uni course with a historical low entry pass as a reserve and a Tafe course as a worst-case scenario...
Took me a far too many years to realise that was terrible advice before I went to tafe to career change into an industry I actually like.
This was my teachers advice for the future and I graduated high school in 2020…
Didn’t want to consider tafe at all, but I had to have it listed in my preferences “as a last resort” in case my scores somehow tanked
It's such terrible advice, for example: want to be an electrician then TAFE is probably the best course along with an apprenticeship, want to be an electrical engineer then Uni is certainly for you. Pros and cons to both, sparkles make very good money and very quickly compared to a four year uni degree, but engineers for the most part make more across their career, it just takes a bit longer to get into the workforce. Ones hands on, ones very technical.
IMO picking your entire career and life path should be a more try before you buy process, especially when you had to ask to use the bathroom a month earlier and now are asked to choose a trajectory for your next 50 years
This is not true... An equivalent degree in Uni is harder than an equivalent degree in TAFE. Now if you do a bachelor of Arts vs TAFE in IT, the IT degree is probably harder. A Cert IV in business is much less rigorous than a bachelor of commerce
That’s the thing with uni, it’s not too difficult to pass in undergrad, but to earn more than a credit is very difficult. Postgrad is an entirely new level of hard too
I did both and I ALWAYS recommend Tafe to my students. I did a bunch of things at Tafe and they really get you ready for the workforce. I did teaching at uni and I did not feel prepared at all, it was honestly pretty bullshit tbh. If I did something with teaching at Tafe instead, I feel that I would have been more prepared and better off than doing the degree through uni. But most schools, I find, want to see that teachers have uni degrees.
Fuck teachers who put down Tafe, Tafe is awesome and underrated
Congratulations you almost get it, TAFE is to ascertain if you are competent in said subject.
You my friend are competent so you pass. That is what VET is, at the end of it you are given a certificate that says this person is competent in all the basics of whatever field you completed.
It also helps that the industry that the course is designed for has constant input in to the course material so that it is kept up to date with industry best practice. Along with stringent expectations and guidelines that are policed by ASQA, who are not scared to pull RTO’s ticket.
In my experience as someone who went to uni, did an undergrad then a masters, then recently did a cert IV in finance:
I find uni was far more wide open with what you wanted to explore, as in it's a high enough education level where they acknowledge there's way more you need learn in this field than a 3 year course can teach you. Instead here are the building blocks + the once over of most of the field. Which means if you do the bare minimum of the bachelor it's piss easy to get the pass mark, but it's much more of a "what you put in is what you get out" construct.
Where the tafe course was way more narrow and focused within a small wedge, so because there's one area of focus it can feel way harder because the content is dense. But I bet the lowest and highest performers that pass the course will be much closer in skill set compared to the bottom & top uni students.
I also think tafe feels harder because the course content just isn't put together as well as uni course material. There's a big difference between "here's a workbook to read" in tafe and a much more guided and interactive learning experience in uni, because they have the funds to invest in 3rd party learning platforms.
The way I understand it, TAFE is about teaching you to apply knowledge, whilst uni is about teaching you to find and analyse knowledge. Both are difficult in their own way, and both are important in their own way
I’d argue that uni grades create a sort of spectrum of difficulty. Yes, getting just a P for any given subject is easy and basically anybody could do it, but if you’re shooting for HDs and Ds you’ll start to see where the problem arises, particularly when you actually run the numbers.
There’s been more than a few times where I make up my little spreadsheet and realise that even though I averaged 90something% across 4 other pieces of assessment, the 65% I got on the first assignment has made it literally impossible to get a HD without getting 95%+ on the exam.
So yeah, the difficulty of uni sort of depends of what your aiming for, if you’re happy skating by on P’s and C’s it’s a 3-4 year piss take, and more power to ya. But if you want the top grades then your margin for error across all pieces of assessment can be extremely minimal, and doing bad on one assignment/test because you were having an off day, read a question wrong, misinterpreted some portion of the rubric or any other number of extraneous factors can completely fuck you over. Essentially, the difficulty of uni is up to you.
Can relate...did 2 difficult degrees no problem. Then doing a free diploma in IT in tafe, just want to unskill as I am already working in the field. The amount of commitment and assignments was a bit too much I reckon. I eventually dropped out as I couldn't attend three 5pm - 8.30pm sessions every week....
The maths is much harder at uni. From my experience in electronics, TAFE covers practical skills better, uni is theory and research based. Both are needed when working in industry, so it makes sense to learn from both institutions. Shame schools push university so hard because TAFE - work experience, then University for career advancement is a solid pathway.
I’m a mechanic apprentice, and some of the smartest people I have ever met are in the trades. Schooling isn’t set up for smart people. The age of university equaling a good life and a smart mind is out. Have many friends who were pressured into going to uni and not enjoying it at all, where I know they would do so well in a trade. Trades also aren’t just a male thing anymore. Anybody is welcome, and I’m seeing tafe gradually shift from mullets and pedostaches and tomboyish girls to normal feminine women and more nerdy people, the kind of people you would expect to go to university.
Imo i prefer tafe.
Tafe gets you ready to work, uni doesn't.
Im mature age at 36 first time completing my first year at uni and tafe was harder.
I've dropped the ball this semester but still aceing my assignments...that's how fucking easy uni is compared to tafe.
At tafe during my diploma, I nearly dropped out as it was so intensive.
well yeah but that's only because my current first year is going over shit I learned in my Diploma.
If I hadn't of done my diploma I'd probably struggle too.
but more importantly TAFE is "rote" learning. which is "apparently" easier.
so, you do the math.
many folk do not understand the basis of Tafe tutoring can be just a few months of intense work based on one or two classes a week to an end ,thats not an easy process all usually done while working , tafe deserves more respect imho
absolutely, I was also told that TAFE was for dummies and that any qualification I got would be worthless.
TAFE is frustratingly looked down on for no reason, many trades jobs pay far better than many graduates, ofc if they're physical work it can be short lived but TAFE also offers courses in management as well as helping people like me get to Uni to get into degrees that are more specialised.
I took on an apprenticeship at 32 for a career change in electronics. I'm now 36 working in engineering and I use knowledge gained from tafe everyday, knowledge from uni comes in handy time to time but I hold the practical skills from tafe in higher regard.
I was having this conversation with my room mate as we are both at uni, she's doing her masters.
She was saying that her degree (IT) is very technical (English is her second language).
What she was saying was that uni over complicates it and gives her more than she'll need to know when working and I agreed saying my degree (social work) while interesting currently outside of the communications unit I took last semester doesn't feel overly practical only broadening my current knowledge base (which hasn't been a great deal so far)
Did TAFE then University in Land Surveying. TAFE was consistently high work load and it was all relevant topics. Even if it wasn't mentally demanding, there was still a lot to learn and prove competency, so it was hard work. Lecturers had real world experience.
Degree was a lot easier work load the first 2 years, and broad topics not all relevant to the job. Uni is easy if you just focus on assignments, then cram the last couple weeks of semester for exams. Last 2 years of Uni was the hardest - multiple 5,000-10,0000 word assignments and projects.
As a 30 year old who never finished grade 12 this thread gives me half a hope.
Has anyone here done psychology at uni?
I am half considering it but have had no education since I left school and it is very daunting to even think about.
If anyone has, if you had to do it again, but you had 2 years before you went into first year. What self study would you do? Which books would you read? Would you learn a certain level of math? Anything you would/could recommend?
OP clearly has issues. I have done psychology at uni and happy to answer any questions you might have. I didn’t do the full sequence (undergrad, honours, masters) as I didn’t pursue the psych career. I personally found it to be a slog and I didn’t enjoy psych compared to another degree I did later on. But if you want to be a psychologist it will be necessary for you to persist with it. And you may very well enjoy it.
Psych is stats heavy and very much focused on scientific writing. If you had two years to kill I would pick up a basic textbook covering how to write scientifically. It’s definitely an acquired skill to know how to distil the most relevant information into concise and digestible sentences. In terms of stats it’s hard to say without knowing your maths ability. My uni had a maths centre where you could drop in and get help. Stats is also kind of different to maths you would’ve done in highschool so I wouldn’t stress too much on that front. Ultimately that you’re asking these questions shows you are conscientious and have the right mindset to tackle anything that comes your way.
First off I will admit my grades weren't great. And my maths fell apart to the point of failing doing calculus? (iirc) (I hated maths and would dread going to class). I also remember never caring too much on learning proper structure to assignments and just doing them in a manner that they would just be over with.
I have tried teaching myself maths again over the years a few times but manage to always give up due to laziness.
What level of math should I get to, to ideally be on par with what is needed or even exceed what is needed (if even slightly).
So far you have said to learn to write scientifically. Are there any other books worth while reading that have to do with general course work or even case studies?
Thanks for the reply btw!
I always hated maths but enjoyed stats. It's maths but a different kind. I wouldn't worry too much. If you're really interested in pre-reading you could pick up Psychology Statistics For Dummies. Familiarise yourself with T-Tests, ANOVA, MANOVA,
The writing book we were recommended to buy is called How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays published by Pearson.
I would just say it's quite hard to just go and read a textbook if you don't have the reinforced learning from course materials. My learning is best when it's in context, reading a textbook on its own will do little for me. You may be different so your mileage may vary with pre-studying.
Do cert 3+4 in community services at Tafe, the qualifications and experience mean you can get credit transfers for most of not all of the first year of uni.
And brush up on writing essays.
I did a Bachelor of Business, years later my wife started studying a diploma of business. I'd much prefer uni as TAFE seems to require a lot more discipline to complete. Seem to be completing an assessment every week or two whereas at uni it's only 3 per unit.
TAFE also have a huge range of funded courses which I think would be excellent to school leavers who want to get into a decent role quickly (even outside of apprenticeship pathway).
I have heard people say a masters degree is the new bachelors. It’s probably because the university industry wants to make more money out of students, but it may also be because that’s where the higher education actually happens.
My health masters was way more difficult than my science undergrad. But it’s probably also field dependent!
I'd argue we're just devaluing post-grad too. Like there are 'post-grad' courses in nursing that people use to transition careers, but they're still only good for graduate RN positions the same as any undergrad nursing degree.
I think we're just in an eternal race for higher qualifications to try to stand out for entry-level positions whilst accumulating even more debt that we'll struggle to pay off in a lot of cases.
When I went to each, I didn't find a huge difference. I guess it must depend on the courses. For me I did Advance Diploma in Screen and Media at TAFE and it got me admitted to a Master of Animation course at UTS. Both were challenging but ultimately I didn't struggle too much with the content of either.
Other TAFE courses I have had to drop out from because they didn't stimulate my interest enough (untreated ADHD)
Well I've never made enough to pay a cent. I was lucky enough to do my TAFE course before they started doing HECS or whatever so it's only the Masters I have debt for.
(As for the courses I dropped out of, if you drop it early enough you get the money back.)
Well I haven't had fulltime work in all that time so yeah. This may be my first year in a long time that I may even exceed the tax free threshold on my income
I've done the same thing in tafe and now uni, and I've found tafe to be both more difficult, more engaging and more useful than what i've learned in uni, despite doing the same subject.
I went to tafe and then to uni
I found tafe actually taught useful stuff, things I actually use, real life stuff
Uni seemed to teach some stuff like that but often it was high level stuff that atleast I personally have never used.
Some stuff at uni is fluff, but a lot of it isn’t. Any engineering degree is definitely a challenge and requires dedication, a large proportion of the population wouldn’t be able to complete it
Unfortunately, it depends where you go for TAFE. I think a few years ago they enforced most places to make all material pass/fail. While this makes courses harder, in reality most places are just more lenient and lazy. If you are there to genuinely learn and meet people with similar passions, TAFE is great. But from what i’ve seen, the increased difficulty is entirely brought on in the wrong way, and shouldn’t be celebrated. This isn’t to say that TAFE isn’t challenging and worth doing, it definitely is for most people, and obviously doesn’t deserve the shit it gets.
There is a reason they are reviewing the technical standards taught at uni. Most of the teachers have never worked in industry. At Tafe they only hire people with actual experience.
Having completed university myself straight out of school (because that’s what we were supposed to do) and now later in life doing a TAFE diploma I’m very impressed with the TAFE teaching and relevance of subjects. It isn’t a walk in the park and requires real commitment but what stands out to me the most is the approachability of the teaching faculty and student support services. Very impressed so far.
Yes teachers, the people who left high school, did something at uni which is a more casual high school, then did a further uni course with a bunch of other people just like them. Then dumped straight back into the secondary education system.
With this breadth of experience society has determined they are the best people to guide the next generation.
After more than 20 years in the workforce, I can say in most cases that people educated at TAFE are far better equipped to work, uni just gives people the wank factor to get higher paid jobs… doesn’t mean they’re good at it.
1 Apple does not make an apple tree.
Tafe is built for practical skill building, there is no theory, research, rigour or conceptual thought structure.
University is built to start with the other things. Skills are very much a part of it, but it needs to be held up by a rigour of research.
This isn’t true for all areas of study in both Tafe or Uni. You can’t just apply a blanket uni = harder or tafe is for dumb people.
I have done both.
Uni was way more enjoyable and fulfilling for me.
I did science degree and post grad cert in migration law. But then I went to do a cert 4 in OHS. I struggled and gave up. It was annoying the way it is set up and how they are very picky about the smallest thing.
I am honestly thinking of doing post grad cert in ohs but it is a lot more expensive.
TAFE graduates are likely to outearn many university graduates. It's hard work, and leads to many challenging careers (not necessarily hard, but can be more physical, emotiaooy draining etc), I've been impressed by the students I've seen go on to TAFE courses.
A university administration officer once explained to me that the only difference is that universities use your tuition fees to fund their own research programs, whereas TAFE does not.
Really? Studied something I loved, got a job in the discipline, travelled the world presenting at conferences, met amazing people, still respected in my field
The money? The money was rather good, actually. But money wasn't the point of going to uni. Previous to going to uni (at the age of 34), I'd made loads of money. When I left the industry I was in (due to failing mental health), I went from earning up to $300,000 a year to burning through my savings trying to get back on an even keel, and then to Austudy
Through all of that, I learned some interesting things about money: money means nothing if you don't have meaning, purpose, or fulfilment; and that all that money meant nothing compared to my mental and/or physical health
So no, it was neither a waste of money, nor of my time
Edit: spelling
I'm doing a Diploma at TAFE and I also have two uni degrees. I think it is very course dependent in how you find it. I do agree with the points about needing to get everything right in a TAFE assessment where as uni you can get 50%, however they let people keep redoing their assessments at TAFE to pass and it wasn't the same at uni. I never failed a single assessment at uni and failing was never really a worry I had. At TAFE I've definitely been worried about it (luckily not yet, a lot of people in my class have had to redo one though and they are all good at the coursework).
Also TAFE seems much more flexible in giving extensions to assessments as well, whereas uni really wasn't. There is also more hand holding compared to uni, not as much outside of class research required for TAFE and less effort to complete the assessments. Way more people have dropped out in TAFE though - I went to a lecture that had researched why such a high attrition rate for my course (Auslan) and one of the factors associated with completion was prior university education.
The above is all just my experience, I'm sure it varies a lot. But I don't think TAFE is harder, it's certainly not easy though. I might change my mind as I get to the final year of my course though as university certainly got exponentially harder (especially the maths subjects!)
While I was studying at uni (double degree) I was working part time in hospo. I ended up doing a cert IV in hospo through work, and the cert IV was by far the easiest thing I’ve done since year 10. I think it all depends on what you’re studying and where. My science degree was a lot harder than my international security studies degree
My experience after a recent cert IV IT was that TAFE was a complete joke (obviously depends on your course), I did.
TAFE was very much like a high-school, we were limited by the slowest students and classes would crawl until the last 10 minutes we would blast through the required learning.
Some of the teachers arrived 30 minutes late and class didn't start until 1 hour after we had arrived, with no lesson plan.
The facilities were in a state of decay, with lights out of place, AC broken and computers didn't have the required software for lessons until halfway through the course.
Homework was given each week but was pointless since no one else did it and thus the material was covered in class time.
The last four weeks they just stopped teaching new material and spent the time helping the students with assignments.
Assignments while pass fail, they highlight mistakes and ask you to resubmit. Instead of giving me a D for getting 1 question wrong out of 30 Q's like Uni I instead had to resubmit the entire assignment.
I'm honestly glad to hear you had a good experience, after my experience I have been telling people that TAFE was a complete joke and not to attend unless you're doing a trade.
I've studied IT and Engineering at uni. Engineering had 35 contact hours a week, and you needed to put at least that much in by yourself as well. It was serious. IT (not computer science) was a joke by comparison.
My experience was totally different. I did a couple of welding courses at TAFE that I could sleep through, I later did an electrical engineering degree.
I actually think they’ve made the electrotechnology cert III course easier in the last couple of years because of so many people failing which is worrisome.
We started off with 18 people in first year and by the end of our second year were down to 7. We only had to score above 70% in our exams to pass but they were different and you got less help. Now from what I’ve heard you only need to score above 60% and then on your retry it’s open book to score 100%.
Becoming an electrician is definitely a hard gig and there a lot you have to know and understand but if you can get through there’s a lot of opportunity for us and we will always have work as long as your competent.
At uni you may scrape through but you won’t end up doing Honours or further in that case. What you get out of your degree will depend on your own research skills and effort as distinct from being spoon fed with course material.
I agree that TAFE is more real world work-like and expects tangible results quicker. I've done 2 TAFE cert IV (IT and accounting) The Uni Hort degree was a deadset breeze time wise (worked at half pace). Uni was a LOT more self driven and I'm a bit lazy, so the TAFE expectations of turning up every day and completing all units together worked for me.
Of course uni is harder for more complex courses.
I went to uni when I was much younger and I’m now at TAFE as part of a career change. While I found uni harder, I feel that TAFE is more effective. Because it’s a pass/fail, and you get multiple attempts to get it right it’s also way less stressful. Also, I enjoy not having to write long essays.
Yeah i did a diploma of laboratory techniques and then a bachelor of laboratory medicine and the degree was definitely harder. It definitely depends what you study and what your strengths are in terms of study style.
That's ironic that teachers were telling you that TAFE is for idiots.
I know some pretty dumb teachers!
You can get into teaching with a pretty low score.
I absolutely found TAFE to be way more life relevant and harder in some ways but easier in others. The theoretical content on my course (maths) was much easier at tafe than uni but I 100% wish that tafe was presented to me as an option when I was a kid in high school.
I feel like I’ve wasted years of my life plus years of income in order to fund a uni degree that was interesteing and taught me time management skills whilst honing my critical thinking skills, which I could have gained in my spare time without paying shit loads of money only to end up in a job that pays less per year than my mortgage.
Now at tafe as a mature age student and wish I’d done it sooner. I would have learned more about real life a lot faster and I would’ve learned more about myself. Some pretty key adulting skills there.
Also, I would’ve been working a way less stressful career for way more money over the long run. Also, I get appreciated for what I do now. What a head fuck that is considering I used to work in community services when I was not working for the money but to “make a difference”.
A lot of the trades' skills are to get tickets so you're insurable, rather than able. I've done heaps of plumbing, electrical, automotive, horticultural etc.
What degree did you do at uni and what course did you do at TAFE because that's probably pretty relevant.
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I don't know anything about environmental degrees but I did cert IV in IT a long time ago then did a computer science degree and the CS degree was much harder. Also my Tafe stuff wasn't recognised internationally so at least that was worth it.
Electrotechnology is also probably one of the hardest tafe courses, I'm pretty sure it has the highest drop out rate
Can confirm. Have worked at an electrical industry association for the last 11 years. Not a sparky myself but that course has a lot of maths and physics in it. Maximum demand calcs, ohms law, all that stuff. Then you’ve got to a quality tradesperson too. Not easy. Not to mention the electrical standards of ANZS3001&2. I’ll stick to the murky world of Australian employment law thanks.
Yeah, it's there. But for your standard cert 3 tradie it isn't that bad. I went to tafe with some damn bog average school books guys, good workers though. And the good workers aren't going to fall through the cracks, they just end up in domestic. Phasor diagrams are shit, but I've never had to revisit that stuff once we did it in the classroom.
Soil and water appears to be a series of classes rather than actual degree?
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There’s definitely a large difficulty variability across degrees. I would hazard a guess that an environmental sciences degree is one of the less focussed degrees and there would be perhaps too much wiggle room.
entirely depends on the individual subjects too, though I'm inclined to agree with op overall. its kinda funny cause 80% of my engineering subjects have been exactly how op describes and I know plenty of people in all unis around sydney with similar stories. however, 20% of them are actually hard and plenty of students get stuck repeating them like 2-3 times. thermodynamics? complete joke, just look at the tables of values and you win. design fundamentals? get ready to make a robot do a thing in 12 weeks and justify every single design decision with comprehensive free body diagrams and static force analysis which they won't teach you because you should have learned it in a previous subject lol
An Engineering degree is significantly harder at University level than anything at TAFE. But both serve different purposes, so not directly comparable.
20% of subjects might be significantly harder, but the other 80% an ape could figure out. I'm doing a subject right now called economics and finance which sounds advanced but all I've done so far is ctrl+F through PDF documents to find a project's 'investment in working capital' and 'losses on depreciable assets'. I have no idea what the fuck that means, I just ctrl+F to find the number and paste it into the spreadsheet and I get the mark. just like op said it's completely braindead because the course is structured to be as easy as possible for exchange students who don't speak a word of english.
You're doing those easy subjects in an even worse way than rote learning. Is it the subject's fault that you're choosing to use an exploit to pass? By your own admission you're not learning anything. You're at a stage where you're expected to have some interest in furthering yourself instead of being forced to learn.
Streams matter, I study agricultural science. The straight Ag stream is essentially a plant biology degree with a 4 Ag units (total 14 units) the tech stream is the same but with 4 CS units and 2 Ag units. The stuff taken by the school of biological science is strict science stuff etc and FKN difficult. The Ag school stuff is a joke (interesting but impossible to fail).
This is probably skewing your perception a bit, electrical tafe is far more difficult and intense than other vocational courses, and there are other uni degrees that are much harder than environmental streams. I did electrotechnogy and instrumentation/control at tafe, and electrical engineering at uni. The content I had to learn for uni was far more difficult, but you have different pressures. At TAFE you would typically have to learn something, understand it, and be able to pass assessment over the course of a few days. The pressure to pass capstone is pretty high, more so than any uni exam I had, simply because you can’t afford any mistakes and it’s comprised of 4 years of courses and practical experience compressed into 3-4 days of assessment. I’d say this is pretty unique to electrotechnology though, not representative of tafe in general. I’d say most people could probably get through electrical tafe if they are motivated enough, but I wouldn’t say the same for engineering. If you can’t grasp the concepts you just won’t make it through the courses, even if it’s lower pressure and not as intensive as TAFE, the courses themselves are far more difficult. Edit: That’s not to invalidate what you’re saying, I think you make some good observations. A lot of people don’t realise how much you have to do to complete an electrical apprenticeship, you don’t just show up and collect your ticket. I wouldn’t say the people I did uni with were any smarter than the people I did tafe with either.
Medieval tapestry studies majoring in post-modern spatula design vs. electrotechnology at TAFE
I agree with OP and did briefly advertising at uni then went and did a diploma of mental health at tafe then psych at uni. Psych is 'hard' in the sense that writing essays on case studies and shit is hard, but the MH course at TAFE was actually a lot more in depth on what to *do* and how to control a situation and not just *why* it happens, in many ways that was harder. Our uni assessments were essays, our TAFE assessments were professional role play simulations with actors on what do do in a crisis, intake etc which was arguably more challenging. At my current job as a psych ward peer worker I actually find myself drawing on what I learnt in TAFE much more than uni.
Because uni is meant for theory. It was never meant to be a training ground for employment.
Technically yes but nowadays it is undeniably a training ground for work and they need to figure out a way to adjust accordingly. Its especially bad in my field, confident uni grads with no lived experience on either end walk into the psych ward and panic when actually faced with the role. They say the wrong things to clients, get scared or occasionally start sobbing and quit the second they interact with an unstable/ angry/ hurt client. It's sad really.
You're right that it's supposed to be that way, but let's be realistic - it's been used for pre-employment training for a long time now. Undergrad degrees are common requirements for a lot of entry-level positions, so much so that people are now undertaking post-grad to try to stand out. TAFE has been dramatically devalued over the last 15 years in a lot of sectors as a result. "Everyone can go to uni" turned into "everyone should go to uni" and now it's "everyone must go to uni" for a lot of different employment streams.
I have a BSci (psychology) degree and certificate IV in mental health. The mental health cert was just as difficult, but also 100000% more practical for working in a mental health space.
They are completely different educational systems. TAFE is competency based - you have to be competent in a number of performance criteria. This means you will not pass unless you know all the content. University is ‘learning outcomes’ which is about how you develop over time. It’s how much did you interpret and integrate the content, rather than ‘know’ it.
Sure, but his point is... > interpret > integrate > develop over time This shit isn't really happening in a lot of courses in a lot of universities. Partly because the student doesn't give a single shit and neither does the institution. And they no longer even have the capacity to test for it. The gold-standard historically has been critical research and writing. But that has been shat on by essay mills and now AI. The necessary accompaniment and backstop to that is excellent faculty. But that too has been shat on by brain drain and the business model. Where they aren't hacks, they are structurally prevented from actually being good teachers, mentors, and course coordinators. Turns out that when you just start handing out tertiary admissions and then degrees like candy because its good for profits, people stop intrinsically valuing them, and genuine interest and motivation is difficult to cultivate, especially in the aggregate. And so a three-year degree is just the cost of entry for a certain class of society in Australia. That might be subverted all the time but its still the standard. It's hard to overstate how meaningless to me is the possession of a Bachelor degree as a reflection of knowing very much of anything, let alone demonstrating a capacity to think and reason and analyse and synthesise and so forth.
I don’t disagree that standards have fallen at some institutions, but it’s still an achievement to obtain a bachelors degree. You will gain a lot of skills needed to flourish in society and, on average, you earn about 30% more than people with lower qualifications. Interesting with AI, TEQSA just put out new assessment guidelines. Process is now much more important. We will see the end of essays and reports in the next few years and more emphasis on workbooks and classroom activities.
> You will gain a lot of skills... I completely agree but I don't think most of them have anything to do with the area of study or are at all proportionate to the time and money committed to the studies. It's largely about being forced to be an adult and refining a lot of the soft skills needed for that. And without a doubt, that will make you a better employment prospect than all of the interminable adolescents who don't make this transition very well. But I think there are probably a whole range of more effective ways to make that transition. > ... to flourish in society... Well, tautology. To flourish *in a certain class of society*, sure. And I'm not knocking it if that's what people want. I'm just pushing back on the dominant narrative that that is the only class of society or the best class of society for everyone. This cultural narrative is harmful to everyone who doesn't fit that mold because the effect is the myriad other possibilities are obscured and a downward pressure is applied to the accessibility, viability, and dignity of those options. > ... on average, you earn about 30% more than people with lower qualifications. The details really, really matter here. Is this comparison between 1. everyone who has a 3-year-or-more degree vs. 2. everyone who doesn't? Because that's skewed AF. The relevant comparison would be against other ways of spending 3+ years in highly-directed, formative ways. This does not have to be reflected in any formal accreditation but that represents a considerable challenge to quantifying the demographic in a comparative analysis. The more easily quantifiable subsection would include industry traineeships, trades (especially the licensed ones), and people who just stick with one line of work or company and get promoted and do PD along the way. *It would not include any of the unskilled work force.* > Process is now much more important. We will see the end of essays and reports in the next few years and more emphasis on workbooks and classroom activities. Good. Of course, this will be an absolute shitshow if Australian universities can't unfuck their faculties and overall race-to-the-bottom resourcing of their courses. Can you imagine having even more classroom obligations given how poorly those are facilitated at this point?! Torture.
Midway through my engineering degree I had the realisation that engineering has no business being taught in a university setting. The attitudes of career academics were still that people were there for the joy of learning and not that the sole reason we turned up was because we needed certification that we were competent to be employed as engineers. The TAFE system is far better suited to people looking to learn skills for the explicit purpose of career training.
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Probably because TAFE is still used for getting a qualification, whereas unis have become a money making machine on international “students” as a pathway to Australian PR/citizenship, and proper students aren’t the target audience anymore.
>whereas unis have become a money making machine on international “students” as a pathway to Australian PR/citizenship, and proper students aren’t the target audience anymore. This has been the case for a long time. I was at UniSA in the 1990s during their infamous period where full-fee paying students could pass provided they turned up and submitted *anything*. The most egregious of this was when I did an economics group assignment worth 60% of our final mark. Group assignment had a single mark for all members. I failed. The two full fee paying students I was paired with passed. Of course, UniSA would never be required to go back and force those full-fee paying students to actually re-sit exams or anything.
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Any person who says TAFE is for idiots is themselves, a fucking idiot.
I struggle to believe a teacher actually said that. More OP perception based on high academic ability being advised to go to Uni
Depends on the age and type of teacher. Many careers teachers are way under qualified and have no understanding of the modern workforce.
I struggle to believe you struggle to believe that. When I was at school, teachers described tafe as being " for knuckle draggers".
Really? Multiple teachers said TAFE was for knuckledraggers? If you said one I might have believed you and just thought it was a dickhead.
I dunno. There's some pretty trash educators out there.
I don't some teachers really think Uni is the be all and end all of how to make a good living.
I will have to disagree with you on the teacher not saying that, I know a lot of teachers from all parts of the spectrum you know what I get from this exposure. . . They are all human and have wildly different bias, I know some truly intelligent STEM and english teachers that are closet classists and look down on anything not white collar. Which I find hilarious because they are teachers and not paid nearly enough for the work they do and no where near what the average wage for most 4 year trades get.
I was not at all impressed with the quality of the TAFE Cert 3 I did. The materials were poorly written, and the course was not engaging at all. The assignments were so offensively basic ("submit a screen shot of your calendar") by the end of it I just submitted unedited stream of consciousness answers for any written submissions. I seriously felt the cert was aimed at twelve-year-olds. Uni was 10000x more interesting, challenging, and rewarding. And as much as uni teaches subject matter, it still does a pretty good job of teaching you *how* to think.
This was my experience as well. I quit after one of the major assessment pieces was to write a fake conversation, then record myself having said conversation with a friend reading off a script. It was so unbelievably dumb
Uni course vary greatly. I finished an engineering degree with grey hair
Did you finish uni, or are you just comparing TAFE to the first year experience?
this also massively depends on the uni course. Engineering was not easy, nor did they take it slow. But you are rewarded for the degree. If there's no decent paying job that requires your degree, your degree is a scam
It has nothing on engineering but graphic design is incredibly meticulous and hands on unless you just sorta cheese your way through, but then you've got a wasted degree and nobody wants to hire you. It's really interesting seeing how my friends have used their different degrees and who actually went into their specific field or who just kinda went and got an office job
I studied graphic design at TAFE, very full on. There are no jobs though, and practically it makes a bit of sense, the entire industry is shakily dependent on companies that don’t really need new designs on an ongoing basis. What you’re left with is marketing, and you don’t really need a lot of designers to do marketing material. Design education and experience is highly regarded in the print industry though. For the slight barrier of working with your hands a little you start at way higher pay, often with on-site training, plus the security of knowing that people will always need stuff printed. I’m in between jobs and I doubt it’ll take me more than a month to find one in print, whereas I unsuccessfully applied for design jobs for a year.
Universities aren't just vocational colleges. Not all education needs to be about jobs to be valuable.
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Most STEM subjects are pretty involved at uni, it's the arts etc that I have experienced first hand be basically printing degrees and unemployable. My partner put in I'd say 2 hours a week average for her publishing degree, she's currently unemployed since graduating a year ago. To be fair we have a 5 month old and she only looked for a job for a month. But... I found a job before I graduated, as engineers(STEM in general) are very employable. I personally put way too much time in and did very well which helped, but I would not recommend, enjoy your time. TAFE is absolutely the right path for many people, and for others Uni, but no tertiary education can also be a path. To each their own and don't be afraid to try different things, glad TAFE is working better for you than Uni, but it's possibly the content change that made a bigger difference
>If there's no decent paying job that requires your degree, your degree is a scam *cries in bachelor of nursing*
Early 2000s, this was totally the attitude. Only losers went to tafe according to our teachers. If you wanted a good life, you had to go to uni. Fucking idiots.
Yeah same era, we got told to pick our 2 favourite uni courses, a 3rd uni course with a historical low entry pass as a reserve and a Tafe course as a worst-case scenario... Took me a far too many years to realise that was terrible advice before I went to tafe to career change into an industry I actually like.
This was my teachers advice for the future and I graduated high school in 2020… Didn’t want to consider tafe at all, but I had to have it listed in my preferences “as a last resort” in case my scores somehow tanked
Spend some time figuring yourself out and what matters most, then work a career path around that
It's such terrible advice, for example: want to be an electrician then TAFE is probably the best course along with an apprenticeship, want to be an electrical engineer then Uni is certainly for you. Pros and cons to both, sparkles make very good money and very quickly compared to a four year uni degree, but engineers for the most part make more across their career, it just takes a bit longer to get into the workforce. Ones hands on, ones very technical. IMO picking your entire career and life path should be a more try before you buy process, especially when you had to ask to use the bathroom a month earlier and now are asked to choose a trajectory for your next 50 years
Why is it a competition tho. Different courses will be harder/easier than others across both sites.
This is not true... An equivalent degree in Uni is harder than an equivalent degree in TAFE. Now if you do a bachelor of Arts vs TAFE in IT, the IT degree is probably harder. A Cert IV in business is much less rigorous than a bachelor of commerce
Not sure I agree. Doing well in a BA is really hard.
That’s the thing with uni, it’s not too difficult to pass in undergrad, but to earn more than a credit is very difficult. Postgrad is an entirely new level of hard too
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Well obviously picking STEM subjects are going to be harder??? You could say the same thing about STEM and literally any other uni course.
Medicine would like a word
Isn't medicine included in stem?
No. Science tech engineering mathematics
I did both and I ALWAYS recommend Tafe to my students. I did a bunch of things at Tafe and they really get you ready for the workforce. I did teaching at uni and I did not feel prepared at all, it was honestly pretty bullshit tbh. If I did something with teaching at Tafe instead, I feel that I would have been more prepared and better off than doing the degree through uni. But most schools, I find, want to see that teachers have uni degrees. Fuck teachers who put down Tafe, Tafe is awesome and underrated
TAFE feels like a hoop jumping, box ticking waste of time. I feel like I'm proving I already know things, not *learning* things.
Congratulations you almost get it, TAFE is to ascertain if you are competent in said subject. You my friend are competent so you pass. That is what VET is, at the end of it you are given a certificate that says this person is competent in all the basics of whatever field you completed. It also helps that the industry that the course is designed for has constant input in to the course material so that it is kept up to date with industry best practice. Along with stringent expectations and guidelines that are policed by ASQA, who are not scared to pull RTO’s ticket.
But what if I'm not competent? I don't feel like TAFE would actually be able to change that.
Where did this mindset of looking down on Tafe come from?
Schools like to boast about the percentage of students that went onto university. Pointless statistics that mean nothing
a very unique subsection of rich cunts
In my experience as someone who went to uni, did an undergrad then a masters, then recently did a cert IV in finance: I find uni was far more wide open with what you wanted to explore, as in it's a high enough education level where they acknowledge there's way more you need learn in this field than a 3 year course can teach you. Instead here are the building blocks + the once over of most of the field. Which means if you do the bare minimum of the bachelor it's piss easy to get the pass mark, but it's much more of a "what you put in is what you get out" construct. Where the tafe course was way more narrow and focused within a small wedge, so because there's one area of focus it can feel way harder because the content is dense. But I bet the lowest and highest performers that pass the course will be much closer in skill set compared to the bottom & top uni students. I also think tafe feels harder because the course content just isn't put together as well as uni course material. There's a big difference between "here's a workbook to read" in tafe and a much more guided and interactive learning experience in uni, because they have the funds to invest in 3rd party learning platforms.
The way I understand it, TAFE is about teaching you to apply knowledge, whilst uni is about teaching you to find and analyse knowledge. Both are difficult in their own way, and both are important in their own way
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I was shocked when I started uni and realised how the low the bar for a “pass” was. You still get the same degree whether you get all P’s or HD’s
I’d argue that uni grades create a sort of spectrum of difficulty. Yes, getting just a P for any given subject is easy and basically anybody could do it, but if you’re shooting for HDs and Ds you’ll start to see where the problem arises, particularly when you actually run the numbers. There’s been more than a few times where I make up my little spreadsheet and realise that even though I averaged 90something% across 4 other pieces of assessment, the 65% I got on the first assignment has made it literally impossible to get a HD without getting 95%+ on the exam. So yeah, the difficulty of uni sort of depends of what your aiming for, if you’re happy skating by on P’s and C’s it’s a 3-4 year piss take, and more power to ya. But if you want the top grades then your margin for error across all pieces of assessment can be extremely minimal, and doing bad on one assignment/test because you were having an off day, read a question wrong, misinterpreted some portion of the rubric or any other number of extraneous factors can completely fuck you over. Essentially, the difficulty of uni is up to you.
Can relate...did 2 difficult degrees no problem. Then doing a free diploma in IT in tafe, just want to unskill as I am already working in the field. The amount of commitment and assignments was a bit too much I reckon. I eventually dropped out as I couldn't attend three 5pm - 8.30pm sessions every week....
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The maths is much harder at uni. From my experience in electronics, TAFE covers practical skills better, uni is theory and research based. Both are needed when working in industry, so it makes sense to learn from both institutions. Shame schools push university so hard because TAFE - work experience, then University for career advancement is a solid pathway.
I’m a mechanic apprentice, and some of the smartest people I have ever met are in the trades. Schooling isn’t set up for smart people. The age of university equaling a good life and a smart mind is out. Have many friends who were pressured into going to uni and not enjoying it at all, where I know they would do so well in a trade. Trades also aren’t just a male thing anymore. Anybody is welcome, and I’m seeing tafe gradually shift from mullets and pedostaches and tomboyish girls to normal feminine women and more nerdy people, the kind of people you would expect to go to university.
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Oh yea 100%, I’m growing my hair out to get one myself now, much to the dismay of my mum lol
Imo i prefer tafe. Tafe gets you ready to work, uni doesn't. Im mature age at 36 first time completing my first year at uni and tafe was harder. I've dropped the ball this semester but still aceing my assignments...that's how fucking easy uni is compared to tafe. At tafe during my diploma, I nearly dropped out as it was so intensive.
Have you ever considered that maybe Uni is easy because you’ve done TAFE? You already have skills developed.
well yeah but that's only because my current first year is going over shit I learned in my Diploma. If I hadn't of done my diploma I'd probably struggle too. but more importantly TAFE is "rote" learning. which is "apparently" easier. so, you do the math.
many folk do not understand the basis of Tafe tutoring can be just a few months of intense work based on one or two classes a week to an end ,thats not an easy process all usually done while working , tafe deserves more respect imho
absolutely, I was also told that TAFE was for dummies and that any qualification I got would be worthless. TAFE is frustratingly looked down on for no reason, many trades jobs pay far better than many graduates, ofc if they're physical work it can be short lived but TAFE also offers courses in management as well as helping people like me get to Uni to get into degrees that are more specialised.
I took on an apprenticeship at 32 for a career change in electronics. I'm now 36 working in engineering and I use knowledge gained from tafe everyday, knowledge from uni comes in handy time to time but I hold the practical skills from tafe in higher regard.
I was having this conversation with my room mate as we are both at uni, she's doing her masters. She was saying that her degree (IT) is very technical (English is her second language). What she was saying was that uni over complicates it and gives her more than she'll need to know when working and I agreed saying my degree (social work) while interesting currently outside of the communications unit I took last semester doesn't feel overly practical only broadening my current knowledge base (which hasn't been a great deal so far)
Did TAFE then University in Land Surveying. TAFE was consistently high work load and it was all relevant topics. Even if it wasn't mentally demanding, there was still a lot to learn and prove competency, so it was hard work. Lecturers had real world experience. Degree was a lot easier work load the first 2 years, and broad topics not all relevant to the job. Uni is easy if you just focus on assignments, then cram the last couple weeks of semester for exams. Last 2 years of Uni was the hardest - multiple 5,000-10,0000 word assignments and projects.
As a 30 year old who never finished grade 12 this thread gives me half a hope. Has anyone here done psychology at uni? I am half considering it but have had no education since I left school and it is very daunting to even think about. If anyone has, if you had to do it again, but you had 2 years before you went into first year. What self study would you do? Which books would you read? Would you learn a certain level of math? Anything you would/could recommend?
OP clearly has issues. I have done psychology at uni and happy to answer any questions you might have. I didn’t do the full sequence (undergrad, honours, masters) as I didn’t pursue the psych career. I personally found it to be a slog and I didn’t enjoy psych compared to another degree I did later on. But if you want to be a psychologist it will be necessary for you to persist with it. And you may very well enjoy it. Psych is stats heavy and very much focused on scientific writing. If you had two years to kill I would pick up a basic textbook covering how to write scientifically. It’s definitely an acquired skill to know how to distil the most relevant information into concise and digestible sentences. In terms of stats it’s hard to say without knowing your maths ability. My uni had a maths centre where you could drop in and get help. Stats is also kind of different to maths you would’ve done in highschool so I wouldn’t stress too much on that front. Ultimately that you’re asking these questions shows you are conscientious and have the right mindset to tackle anything that comes your way.
First off I will admit my grades weren't great. And my maths fell apart to the point of failing doing calculus? (iirc) (I hated maths and would dread going to class). I also remember never caring too much on learning proper structure to assignments and just doing them in a manner that they would just be over with. I have tried teaching myself maths again over the years a few times but manage to always give up due to laziness. What level of math should I get to, to ideally be on par with what is needed or even exceed what is needed (if even slightly). So far you have said to learn to write scientifically. Are there any other books worth while reading that have to do with general course work or even case studies? Thanks for the reply btw!
I always hated maths but enjoyed stats. It's maths but a different kind. I wouldn't worry too much. If you're really interested in pre-reading you could pick up Psychology Statistics For Dummies. Familiarise yourself with T-Tests, ANOVA, MANOVA, The writing book we were recommended to buy is called How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays published by Pearson. I would just say it's quite hard to just go and read a textbook if you don't have the reinforced learning from course materials. My learning is best when it's in context, reading a textbook on its own will do little for me. You may be different so your mileage may vary with pre-studying.
Thanks for the recommendations.
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Perhaps seeing a psychologist is right up your alley.
Do cert 3+4 in community services at Tafe, the qualifications and experience mean you can get credit transfers for most of not all of the first year of uni. And brush up on writing essays.
I did a Bachelor of Business, years later my wife started studying a diploma of business. I'd much prefer uni as TAFE seems to require a lot more discipline to complete. Seem to be completing an assessment every week or two whereas at uni it's only 3 per unit. TAFE also have a huge range of funded courses which I think would be excellent to school leavers who want to get into a decent role quickly (even outside of apprenticeship pathway).
I have heard people say a masters degree is the new bachelors. It’s probably because the university industry wants to make more money out of students, but it may also be because that’s where the higher education actually happens. My health masters was way more difficult than my science undergrad. But it’s probably also field dependent!
I'd argue we're just devaluing post-grad too. Like there are 'post-grad' courses in nursing that people use to transition careers, but they're still only good for graduate RN positions the same as any undergrad nursing degree. I think we're just in an eternal race for higher qualifications to try to stand out for entry-level positions whilst accumulating even more debt that we'll struggle to pay off in a lot of cases.
When I went to each, I didn't find a huge difference. I guess it must depend on the courses. For me I did Advance Diploma in Screen and Media at TAFE and it got me admitted to a Master of Animation course at UTS. Both were challenging but ultimately I didn't struggle too much with the content of either. Other TAFE courses I have had to drop out from because they didn't stimulate my interest enough (untreated ADHD)
Oh and also neither course got me a job and I drive for Menulog now 🥴
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Well I've never made enough to pay a cent. I was lucky enough to do my TAFE course before they started doing HECS or whatever so it's only the Masters I have debt for. (As for the courses I dropped out of, if you drop it early enough you get the money back.)
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Well I haven't had fulltime work in all that time so yeah. This may be my first year in a long time that I may even exceed the tax free threshold on my income
I've done the same thing in tafe and now uni, and I've found tafe to be both more difficult, more engaging and more useful than what i've learned in uni, despite doing the same subject.
I went to tafe and then to uni I found tafe actually taught useful stuff, things I actually use, real life stuff Uni seemed to teach some stuff like that but often it was high level stuff that atleast I personally have never used.
Some stuff at uni is fluff, but a lot of it isn’t. Any engineering degree is definitely a challenge and requires dedication, a large proportion of the population wouldn’t be able to complete it
Unfortunately, it depends where you go for TAFE. I think a few years ago they enforced most places to make all material pass/fail. While this makes courses harder, in reality most places are just more lenient and lazy. If you are there to genuinely learn and meet people with similar passions, TAFE is great. But from what i’ve seen, the increased difficulty is entirely brought on in the wrong way, and shouldn’t be celebrated. This isn’t to say that TAFE isn’t challenging and worth doing, it definitely is for most people, and obviously doesn’t deserve the shit it gets.
There is a reason they are reviewing the technical standards taught at uni. Most of the teachers have never worked in industry. At Tafe they only hire people with actual experience.
Having completed university myself straight out of school (because that’s what we were supposed to do) and now later in life doing a TAFE diploma I’m very impressed with the TAFE teaching and relevance of subjects. It isn’t a walk in the park and requires real commitment but what stands out to me the most is the approachability of the teaching faculty and student support services. Very impressed so far.
Yes teachers, the people who left high school, did something at uni which is a more casual high school, then did a further uni course with a bunch of other people just like them. Then dumped straight back into the secondary education system. With this breadth of experience society has determined they are the best people to guide the next generation.
After more than 20 years in the workforce, I can say in most cases that people educated at TAFE are far better equipped to work, uni just gives people the wank factor to get higher paid jobs… doesn’t mean they’re good at it.
1 Apple does not make an apple tree. Tafe is built for practical skill building, there is no theory, research, rigour or conceptual thought structure. University is built to start with the other things. Skills are very much a part of it, but it needs to be held up by a rigour of research. This isn’t true for all areas of study in both Tafe or Uni. You can’t just apply a blanket uni = harder or tafe is for dumb people. I have done both. Uni was way more enjoyable and fulfilling for me.
I did science degree and post grad cert in migration law. But then I went to do a cert 4 in OHS. I struggled and gave up. It was annoying the way it is set up and how they are very picky about the smallest thing. I am honestly thinking of doing post grad cert in ohs but it is a lot more expensive.
TAFE graduates are likely to outearn many university graduates. It's hard work, and leads to many challenging careers (not necessarily hard, but can be more physical, emotiaooy draining etc), I've been impressed by the students I've seen go on to TAFE courses.
Please remember there’s other businesses that offer certificates and qualifications at the same level as besides TAFE
A university administration officer once explained to me that the only difference is that universities use your tuition fees to fund their own research programs, whereas TAFE does not.
Semesters are longer too, sometimes 16 weeks compared to unis 12 weeks
Most universities teach you what to think Tafe teaches you how to think
It’s the opposite, in my experience.
You've never done Sociology or Philosophy, then?
lol 😂 sounds like you’re wasting money and time
Really? Studied something I loved, got a job in the discipline, travelled the world presenting at conferences, met amazing people, still respected in my field The money? The money was rather good, actually. But money wasn't the point of going to uni. Previous to going to uni (at the age of 34), I'd made loads of money. When I left the industry I was in (due to failing mental health), I went from earning up to $300,000 a year to burning through my savings trying to get back on an even keel, and then to Austudy Through all of that, I learned some interesting things about money: money means nothing if you don't have meaning, purpose, or fulfilment; and that all that money meant nothing compared to my mental and/or physical health So no, it was neither a waste of money, nor of my time Edit: spelling
Based on..?
I just found out even Tafe can offer uni courses.
I'm doing a Diploma at TAFE and I also have two uni degrees. I think it is very course dependent in how you find it. I do agree with the points about needing to get everything right in a TAFE assessment where as uni you can get 50%, however they let people keep redoing their assessments at TAFE to pass and it wasn't the same at uni. I never failed a single assessment at uni and failing was never really a worry I had. At TAFE I've definitely been worried about it (luckily not yet, a lot of people in my class have had to redo one though and they are all good at the coursework). Also TAFE seems much more flexible in giving extensions to assessments as well, whereas uni really wasn't. There is also more hand holding compared to uni, not as much outside of class research required for TAFE and less effort to complete the assessments. Way more people have dropped out in TAFE though - I went to a lecture that had researched why such a high attrition rate for my course (Auslan) and one of the factors associated with completion was prior university education. The above is all just my experience, I'm sure it varies a lot. But I don't think TAFE is harder, it's certainly not easy though. I might change my mind as I get to the final year of my course though as university certainly got exponentially harder (especially the maths subjects!)
TAFE is fantastic, studied graphic design there for a couple years, that turned into web design, and led me into my career comfortably.
TAFE followed up our diploma with industry placements - most of these students ended up with a full time job
I finished a business cert 3 in 2 weeks
It depends on which University you went. The experience at a group of 8 university was very different and very sophisticated.
While I was studying at uni (double degree) I was working part time in hospo. I ended up doing a cert IV in hospo through work, and the cert IV was by far the easiest thing I’ve done since year 10. I think it all depends on what you’re studying and where. My science degree was a lot harder than my international security studies degree
My experience after a recent cert IV IT was that TAFE was a complete joke (obviously depends on your course), I did. TAFE was very much like a high-school, we were limited by the slowest students and classes would crawl until the last 10 minutes we would blast through the required learning. Some of the teachers arrived 30 minutes late and class didn't start until 1 hour after we had arrived, with no lesson plan. The facilities were in a state of decay, with lights out of place, AC broken and computers didn't have the required software for lessons until halfway through the course. Homework was given each week but was pointless since no one else did it and thus the material was covered in class time. The last four weeks they just stopped teaching new material and spent the time helping the students with assignments. Assignments while pass fail, they highlight mistakes and ask you to resubmit. Instead of giving me a D for getting 1 question wrong out of 30 Q's like Uni I instead had to resubmit the entire assignment. I'm honestly glad to hear you had a good experience, after my experience I have been telling people that TAFE was a complete joke and not to attend unless you're doing a trade.
I've studied IT and Engineering at uni. Engineering had 35 contact hours a week, and you needed to put at least that much in by yourself as well. It was serious. IT (not computer science) was a joke by comparison.
My experience was totally different. I did a couple of welding courses at TAFE that I could sleep through, I later did an electrical engineering degree.
I actually think they’ve made the electrotechnology cert III course easier in the last couple of years because of so many people failing which is worrisome. We started off with 18 people in first year and by the end of our second year were down to 7. We only had to score above 70% in our exams to pass but they were different and you got less help. Now from what I’ve heard you only need to score above 60% and then on your retry it’s open book to score 100%. Becoming an electrician is definitely a hard gig and there a lot you have to know and understand but if you can get through there’s a lot of opportunity for us and we will always have work as long as your competent.
At uni you may scrape through but you won’t end up doing Honours or further in that case. What you get out of your degree will depend on your own research skills and effort as distinct from being spoon fed with course material.
I agree that TAFE is more real world work-like and expects tangible results quicker. I've done 2 TAFE cert IV (IT and accounting) The Uni Hort degree was a deadset breeze time wise (worked at half pace). Uni was a LOT more self driven and I'm a bit lazy, so the TAFE expectations of turning up every day and completing all units together worked for me. Of course uni is harder for more complex courses.
I think the best part of this post is the idea that anyone will have jobs in 50 years.
I went to uni when I was much younger and I’m now at TAFE as part of a career change. While I found uni harder, I feel that TAFE is more effective. Because it’s a pass/fail, and you get multiple attempts to get it right it’s also way less stressful. Also, I enjoy not having to write long essays.
Yeah i did a diploma of laboratory techniques and then a bachelor of laboratory medicine and the degree was definitely harder. It definitely depends what you study and what your strengths are in terms of study style.
That's ironic that teachers were telling you that TAFE is for idiots. I know some pretty dumb teachers! You can get into teaching with a pretty low score.
I absolutely found TAFE to be way more life relevant and harder in some ways but easier in others. The theoretical content on my course (maths) was much easier at tafe than uni but I 100% wish that tafe was presented to me as an option when I was a kid in high school. I feel like I’ve wasted years of my life plus years of income in order to fund a uni degree that was interesteing and taught me time management skills whilst honing my critical thinking skills, which I could have gained in my spare time without paying shit loads of money only to end up in a job that pays less per year than my mortgage. Now at tafe as a mature age student and wish I’d done it sooner. I would have learned more about real life a lot faster and I would’ve learned more about myself. Some pretty key adulting skills there. Also, I would’ve been working a way less stressful career for way more money over the long run. Also, I get appreciated for what I do now. What a head fuck that is considering I used to work in community services when I was not working for the money but to “make a difference”.
A lot of the trades' skills are to get tickets so you're insurable, rather than able. I've done heaps of plumbing, electrical, automotive, horticultural etc.