Wandering Scholar

[morsla]

So, last Friday night I recieved an email addressed to "Dear Prospective Student." It gave details for a compulsory Business Research Methods course, running from the 2nd - 18th of March... held in the city from 9:30 - 12:30 every weekday. It's trampled all over any plans I had for the current fortnight, and reintroduced me to the wonders of long public tranport trips.

Four sessions on qualitative methodology helped, as I have a much better idea of what everyone else is working on at the moment. Today's session (a three-hour overview of statistical methods) wasn't nearly as relevant to my project, so the rest of this week may be a trial. I also seem to be representing the "Other" demographic in a class comprised of economics, accounting, finance and management students... today, someone commented that I looked like "someone from a creative industry" because I have long hair. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

I'm actually spending more time on the train than I do in class. Many hours on the Frankston line are steadily eroding my compassion for humanity.


In other news, still not enrolled at RMIT yet. That means I'm still waiting on a student number, IT access, library access, building access, and a place to work. At least the CRC was organised enough to confirm my scholarship back in January... although nobody seems entirely sure how the scholarship works, so I'm now entering my sixth week without being paid. I haven't found anyone who can tell me whether it's an RMIT issue (need to be a postgrad student first) or a CRC one (in which case, what the hell is going on?).

I've spent the past few weeks working out of a backpack, drifting from cafe to foodcourt throughout the city. It seems I've successfully turned into a Wandering Scholar, though I haven't noticed any epic kung fu battles yet.

Comments

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

ooh scholarships, arent the grad centre people in charge of that? i would check with ur supervisor (who holds the research funds/knows where it is coming from) and also, human resources (they pay you!!). i had to sign lots of paperwork with payroll, thats all i remember tho. but yeah, i am sure u are prob some sort of divisional scholarship (uni pays half, crc pays the other). I'd hassle the grad centre for sure tho, they are the ones who look out for ya in the end ;) Dont expect ur supervisors to know much, except account codes to charge! :)

Are u going to try and get some demonstrator/tutorial work? def an easy way to get a nice tax return each year, cause a scholarship is tax free! yay :D

[harkon.livejournal.com]

I've got RMIT student number though I'm not doing any subjects this semester so if you drop me an email I can probably help you out with at least the computer login and online library stuff.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

My scholarship is entirely coming from the CRC, who apparently pay it to the uni. The uni hasn't recieved anything yet, though...

I don't think that I'm likely to end up teaching tutorials, as I'm in the School of Accounting and Law :) Once I wrap up some more loose ends with my business, I'll start looking into research assistant work though.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Most of the stuff I need at the moment is up on Blackboard, unfortunately - so I'll need my own number, and enrolment into the research methods course. They seem happy to send me "dear prospective student" emails, but all the useful stuff is restricted to the actual students in the course.

I'm hoping that things will get sorted in the next few weeks, so that I have time to work on the assessment after getting access to it...

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

haha yeah you are busy enough as it is with ur business!

as for the scholarship, who is dealing with moneys and scholarship in the CRC? is ur supervisor super unhelpful, or is the problem related to the CRC's accounting?? Make sure the supervisor has put through all the paperwork!

hope u have a computer and desk etc all set up tho?? sucks u arent enrolled either! how slack! :P

[morsla.livejournal.com]

No computer or desk... I don't even have a card to get past reception, which has made it tricky when I need to attend meetings. I've been working from home so far, though I keep getting told that a desk will be organised one day.

All the paperwork has apparently been sent off, but I think RMIT's new centralised enrolment centre have managed to lose things along the way. The CRC is also brand new, so nobody really knows what's supposed to happen with students at the moment...

I've just sent some forms off to the finance manager, so hopefully I'll get paid at some stage - although the email I saw earlier mentions that the CRC will transfer my first payment to the uni "in the last week of March." Still, that's better than "some time before 2010."

[harkon.livejournal.com]

I trick I discovered a while back was that the Blackboard authentication seems to only be used to actually get you past the front "portal" page. I was able to send Rachael links to things like the Discussion Board. I can't remember if it required me to be logged on at the time, but if not, you might be able to ask someone in your class, or even the lecturer to send you the link and you might be able to access the files you need. RMIT ICT security kind left a lot to be desired...