Wiser Than Man's Wisdom
Jan. 1st, 2009 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenIt's awesome when you can look back at something which seemed at the time to be a case of everything going wrong, and see in hindsight that it was really a case of everything going right. This just happened to my eldest niece. (Well, we knew about it on Christmas Eve, but I've been thinking more about it since.)
She's just finished Year 12, and has been applying to go to various universities. In Victoria, at the current time (education departments always seem to change the system every five years or so; I guess they get bored) there are two factors taken into account when applying for university places: one's UMAT sccore, and one's end-of-year results. I gather that the UMAT is some sort of IQ test; the test is done earlier than the end-of-year results come out, so you can understand why the universities might want to use it for preliminary weeding-out.
A third factor is, that if one wishes to get into Medicine, one has to have an interview before they will accept you - which I think is an improvement from when I was at school. I guess they finally figured that it takes more than high marks to make a good doctor.
And, yes, my niece wants to do medicine.
Unfortunately, although she is very smart and very hardworking (there were a couple of occasions this year where we had to drag her away from her studies) she actually did badly in the UMAT. What seems likely is that she wasn't used to the form of the test, and also stumbled over things because she'd been brought up in a different culture (Indonesia rather than Australia). This was a huge blow, because practically all the universities she applied for wouldn't even bother offering an interview for medicine if one's UMAT score wasn't good enough. And her UMAT score wasn't good enough. Oh, she was good enough to get into Science, but not Medicine. They started wondering if it would be best to do Bio-Med Science, and try to get into Medicine through the back door.
Then she got offered an interview at James Cook University, in Townsville, up the top end of Australia. Americans wouldn't blink at the distance, I expect, but in Australia, it is the norm for one to go to university in one's own state. Indeed, when I was in school, it was almost unheard-of, and the universities made it difficult to apply if you were from a different state; you had to go through extra hoops because they wouldn't recognise the results from a different state. So there was a dilemma; should she go for the interview, should she consider Townsville, when it's so far away from her family? But she decided not to close that door prematurely, and chose to go to the interview.
Cue a bunch of "coincidences". Her family had recently made friends with a family who had family in Townsville, and they arranged for her to be met when she got there. Then, when she was waiting for the interview, a nice man talked to her... and turned out to be the Dean of Medicine! And the interview went well.
Back home, the end-of-year results came out; she got 99%! Lo and behold, Monash University offered her a scholarship for Science (she was still out of the running for Medicine). What was she going to do?
What I didn't know was that James Cook had an international reputation for Tropical Medicine, which is just what my niece was interested in (no surprise, being brought up in Indonesia). So when they rang her up on Christmas Eve to tell her that they were offering her a place at JCU, it took her about two seconds to say "yes".
But she wouldn't even have considered JCU if she had had offers for medicine at other universities, even though the course offered at JCU is much much better for her purposes than at other universities.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
She's just finished Year 12, and has been applying to go to various universities. In Victoria, at the current time (education departments always seem to change the system every five years or so; I guess they get bored) there are two factors taken into account when applying for university places: one's UMAT sccore, and one's end-of-year results. I gather that the UMAT is some sort of IQ test; the test is done earlier than the end-of-year results come out, so you can understand why the universities might want to use it for preliminary weeding-out.
A third factor is, that if one wishes to get into Medicine, one has to have an interview before they will accept you - which I think is an improvement from when I was at school. I guess they finally figured that it takes more than high marks to make a good doctor.
And, yes, my niece wants to do medicine.
Unfortunately, although she is very smart and very hardworking (there were a couple of occasions this year where we had to drag her away from her studies) she actually did badly in the UMAT. What seems likely is that she wasn't used to the form of the test, and also stumbled over things because she'd been brought up in a different culture (Indonesia rather than Australia). This was a huge blow, because practically all the universities she applied for wouldn't even bother offering an interview for medicine if one's UMAT score wasn't good enough. And her UMAT score wasn't good enough. Oh, she was good enough to get into Science, but not Medicine. They started wondering if it would be best to do Bio-Med Science, and try to get into Medicine through the back door.
Then she got offered an interview at James Cook University, in Townsville, up the top end of Australia. Americans wouldn't blink at the distance, I expect, but in Australia, it is the norm for one to go to university in one's own state. Indeed, when I was in school, it was almost unheard-of, and the universities made it difficult to apply if you were from a different state; you had to go through extra hoops because they wouldn't recognise the results from a different state. So there was a dilemma; should she go for the interview, should she consider Townsville, when it's so far away from her family? But she decided not to close that door prematurely, and chose to go to the interview.
Cue a bunch of "coincidences". Her family had recently made friends with a family who had family in Townsville, and they arranged for her to be met when she got there. Then, when she was waiting for the interview, a nice man talked to her... and turned out to be the Dean of Medicine! And the interview went well.
Back home, the end-of-year results came out; she got 99%! Lo and behold, Monash University offered her a scholarship for Science (she was still out of the running for Medicine). What was she going to do?
What I didn't know was that James Cook had an international reputation for Tropical Medicine, which is just what my niece was interested in (no surprise, being brought up in Indonesia). So when they rang her up on Christmas Eve to tell her that they were offering her a place at JCU, it took her about two seconds to say "yes".
But she wouldn't even have considered JCU if she had had offers for medicine at other universities, even though the course offered at JCU is much much better for her purposes than at other universities.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 11:25 pm (UTC)And JCU just has a good reputation all around, at least in Queensland.
That's good to hear.
I hope she has a great time.
All her uncles were giving her advice about university life, and warning her about the Dangers of Drink. ;-)
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Date: 2008-12-31 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 11:50 pm (UTC)I think she has also made a good choice. JCU is a good university and if she really is interested in tropical medicine, it is the best place to go. It does have the only MBBS course in Northern Australia but at the postgraduate level the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine is located there. Anyone thinking of doing medicine should be mentally prepared for a posting to rural Australia at some point in any case.
It is still unusual to go to university in another state, but at least it is much easier than back when we were at school. My recollection is that NSW admissions closed before Victoria released its results and stupid stuff like that. JCU and UNE were two important exceptions. But a lot of people dreamed of doing marine biology at JCU (out on the Great Barrier Reef) and that course was notoriously difficult to get in to. The only person I know who did freaked when she had to scuba dive and wound up transferring to botany. Last I heard she had written her PhD on the mushrooms up there.
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Date: 2008-12-31 11:56 pm (UTC)Yeah, who wouldn't dream of doing marine biology where you can go to the Reef? No surprise it's hard to get into; the places would be limited.
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Date: 2009-01-01 01:35 am (UTC)Amen. That's wonderful to hear. Thanks for sharing. Things do work out, don't they? Something like that happened when I got my first job.
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Date: 2009-01-01 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 01:50 am (UTC)and:
Congratulations to your niece!
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Date: 2009-01-01 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 01:13 pm (UTC)Congrats to the niece! Huzzah!!!
Don't you just love seeing God work like that?
I'm very excited on her behalf.
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Date: 2009-01-01 10:34 pm (UTC)Yes indeedie!
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Date: 2009-01-01 04:28 pm (UTC)It reminds me of a past teaching colleague of mine. He left teaching to enter the ministry. Then his child was diagnosed as autistic. He was left with a dilemma as where he was ministering didn't have good education facilities for children coping with autism. He was seriously considering returning to teaching so that the family could move to an area with better scope for their son, when a church offered him a place right where he wanted to be. Since his move he has found himself ministering to several families coping with autism.
As you say God knows where He wants people, He just needs them to listen.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 10:35 pm (UTC)