to our webinar on migration law and
practice it's 5:30 so we'll commence my
name is Maxine Evers I'm the
associate dean for education in the
Faculty of Law at UTS. Before we begin
our webinar I wish to pay my respects to
the elders of the Eora Nation and the
Gadigal people for whom our land at UTS
sits on their ancestral lands and is an
opportunity for us to pay respects to a
nation of knowledge bearers and
knowledge holders and knowledge sharers
so we are very privileged to have our
University where it sits so thank you
for joining us on a cold winter's night
I suppose it is a preference though in
some ways for um for those of you that
would be that are in Sydney to travel
into our beautiful new building down at
Broadway but from for us and for my
colleagues that are joining me tonight
on this webinar this is a fantastic
example of what learning is like in the
Graduate Diploma of migration law
practice you are getting really your
first taste of what it's like to be able
to engage to be able to listen to ask
questions obviously the course is much
more hands-on and interactive than a
webinar but you are getting to have some
experiences the technology that will be
using so we have a poll in progress
tonight we've got two polls so we we
would like to know a little bit more
about you as an as a general audience
and so the first question you can see
out there on your screen is if in your
planning around undertaking this course
is after the outcome of being a
migration advisor there's no right or
wrong answer just gives us an idea of
the type of participants and the was the
career aspirations for the participants
that are here this evening
the webinar will really take our two
forms the first part is really the most
important part for you as participants
to really learn more about the course
I'm sure many of you have done a lot of
homework you've looked at
website is I thought about this for a
long time
and now is the opportunity to hear more
about really what happens at the
coalface
of your learning and to answer those
questions that you have we will leave
time time at the end of the webinar to
answer your questions but if you do have
questions during the webinar please
don't hesitate to either put them in the
Q&A box or in the chat box I have my
colleagues here from marketing
communications team as well as Christine
Giles and myself and so amongst us we
hopefully will get to as many questions
as we can and of course if we do it
we've got that time at the end and then
the second part of our webinar is really
around the administration of the course
the what it's like to be a student at
UTSA some of you may have already
studied with us or may have had family
or friends as I studied at UTSA but
really to give you some information and
some resources about how we work with
students in achieving their learning
outcomes so I would now like to hand
over to Christine Giles Christine is a
program head of the Graduate deployment
migration migration law and practice we
are very lucky to have Christine as our
program head Christine was instrumental
in ETS for school being awarded the
approval of offering the Graduate
Diploma in migration law and practice
which commenced in 2018 Christine is
extremely experienced in both migration
advice work as a member of the tribunal
and now as an academic or a practitioner
so Christine leads at the team of
practitioners and some that are in
practice and some are coming to do the
assessments to take you through the six
subjects in the Graduate Diploma so I'll
hand over now to Christine to give you
some more information about the course
Thank You Christine thank you thank you
Maxine I just launched the second pulse
and thank you to those who responded to
the first one letting us know what your
intentions are at the moment
this is just asking those of you in the
room where do you have any experience in
the area we are recording this webinar a
lot of time to actually read that slide
but just so that you note for the
benefit of those who aren't able to join
us live tonight and that's a good
example of what we do with our classes
because we do understand that not
everyone can attend a live online class
at the time it's delivered so recordings
are uploaded as soon as possible as soon
as they've become available and there's
no penalty for not participating live
that's great if you can but we certainly
understand if you can't and please feel
free to ask questions at any time
throughout this webinar you can either
post your question in the Q&A box or in
the chat box little picture there so
that you know what you're looking for so
thank you got 85% voted so I'll close
that poll and see that where we know 1/3
I'll share the results with both of you
in the room if you're watching and
recording you won't to see these results
I'm sorry but it's about a third with of
participants not having any experience
in migration more a third having applied
for a visa for themselves or a family
member and a third of working in the
area at the moment so thank you very
much for participating in that we do
lots of polling in our live online
classes just to keep you on your toes
and actually you're awake so if you've
done your research you will know that
there are some steps that need to be
taken to become a migration agent if you
are not currently a legal practitioner a
lawyer holding and like current legal
practicing certificate then there are
two knowledge requirements that must be
met to be able to register as a
migration agent the first is the
Graduate Diploma in migration law and
practice and as Maxine said UTS was very
fortunate to be approved as one of the
providers of this particular knowledge
requirement the second knowledge
requirement once you graduate
- your graduate diploma is the capstone
assessment and I'll be talking more
about that I'm sure quite a few of you
have heard some very nasty things about
it I'm giving you some good news about
it actually pretty exciting news as far
as we're concerned now they are the
knowledge requirements there are also
many other requirements and I urge you
to familiarize yourself with those
before you spend money on obtaining
graduate diploma for example if you have
a serious criminal history then you are
not going to meet the requirements as a
fit and proper person for registration
so you would really be wasting your
money undertaking this program if your
goal is to register as a migration agent
equally the language skills the English
language skills are very high for
registration as a migration agent and
equally high for passing the capstone
assessment so if you're not at that
stage with your language skills then you
certainly need to focus on that
immediately
now there are other requirements that
have to be met the link is there but go
to the migration agents registration
authorities site and familiarize
yourself with those requirements just to
make sure that there are no unpleasant
surprises you don't want to get through
the knowledge requirements and then find
that you can't meet the other
requirements so with some exceptions
anyone who provides immigration
assistance must be a registered
migration agent otherwise they are
committing a very serious criminal
offense and we are an accredited
provider of one of those knowledge
requirements and as I said there are
many others slide is still saying
Australian citizenship but Australian
permanent residents but there are as I
said already a number of requirements
when you get to registration stage so
please do familiarize yourself with
those now why choose us there's lots of
reasons here on this slide but when I
tell you about our capstone results I
think you'll it be even more
sited but it is a very practical course
you see in a slide that we are using a
learning platform called canvas and our
program is very interactive so what you
were doing virtually from day one
is looking at how is doing the type of
tasks that you would be doing in
practice so you're learning what you
need to know to be able to advise a
non-citizen on their rights to obtain a
visa and what to do if something goes
wrong
so as Maxine said I'm in the director of
the program my background I wasn't a
tribunal member I was actually the
immigration Ombudsman in in Queensland
but my background I was a barrister for
many years I worked in private practice
as a migration agent and for one of the
immigration legal services and then I
took on a four year appointment to do
the role of the immigration Ombudsman in
Queensland and since then I have been
teaching at various universities before
the Graduate Diploma there was a good
for Griffith University and I also
worked at the Anu program but I'm pretty
sure we've got the best UTS has the best
Graduate Diploma and that's partly
because of our wonderful canvas platform
and our very interactive program so
besides me
we have practitioner lecturers and they
are all currently practitioners they're
very good teachers as well but they are
working in migration or a day in day out
and they can share with you their war
stories and I can share with you some
very special insights that I gained in
the Ombudsman's role so we do focus very
much on combining theory with practice
and as it says there you will be able to
complete the course within a year our
capstone preparation module in our final
subject is complementary you don't pay
anything extra for that and what it
means is you are going to know what you
need to know to succeed
only in the final module in our program
but also beyond that going through the
capstone assessment and it is very
flexible as I said everything is
recorded you can just work through the
pages in canvas at your own pace and
watch the recording if you are not able
to participate in a live online class so
this is the structure of our program if
you've looked at some others you'll see
that they offer the program in eight
subjects rather than six we were very
fortunate to get approval from Morrow to
offer it in six subjects which makes it
much more practical for you to take two
subjects per session for three sessions
and still complete the graduate diploma
in 12 months so you and students
commencing the following session are
very fortunate because you can see there
on that chart that all subjects are
offered three times a year
and that means you can do the first two
subjects this in your first session you
can do the second two subjects in your
second session and you can finish up
with your third and you will be finished
within a year they're going to need to
add another probably six months onto the
end of that anyway to finish or get
through your capstone assessment so we
really do encourage you to take your
time to take these subjects as they were
designed because they do scaffold on
each other the course gets harder as you
get as you progress through it and it's
really important that you get the most
out of every subject it's no point just
scraping a pass because when you get on
to that capstone assessment the pass
mark is sixty-five percent so your goal
in this program needs to be a credit or
higher to have some confidence that you
will be able to cope with that capstone
assessment but I will be talking about
that more shortly so our very first
subject 7/8 300 is a law for non lawyers
subject so if you have no background in
law
please don't worry this subject has been
designed especially for you it gives you
all the funding
knowledge that you need to understand
and be able to interpret migration law
and to be able to apply it to client
circumstances and to be able to explain
to analyze it rich conclusions and
explain all that so that's all part of
that introductory subject if you hold a
current practicing certificate if you're
a lawyer you can apply prior to
enrollment for recognition for prior
learning and you can be exempt from 7-8
307 8 305 and just do the four subjects
in the middle but if you don't have any
background in law at all then you will
be completing the six subjects and that
first subject will give you a really
good introduction to progress now in 7/8
301 we look at each and every visa
subclass now that doesn't mean that
you're expected to know everything about
them or who's eligible for them and
who's not but it's an introduction so
that you are aware of what the visas are
that are available we also look at many
common concepts so who can apply for a
visa who can be included in the
application can it only be applied for
from within Australia or can only be
apply for from outside Australia whether
there has to be a sponsor for the visa
whether there has to be some sort of
bond security bond so these concepts are
common to either some visa subclasses or
all these are subclasses and we cover
all those in this Australia's visa
system subject so that by the time you
are ready to progress to the next two
subjects where we do look in detail at
every single visa there is you'll be
prepared for that because you know the
basics you will know about sponsorship
you will know whether an assurance of
support is required you'll know who a
member of the family unit is who can be
included and who can't you know about
the one fails or felt rule that means if
for some visas if there are members of
the family unit who can't pass the
character or health requirements then no
one can get that visa
so you'll be well-prepared to move on to
those next two subjects 780 304 is my
favorite it's what can go wrong where we
learn how migration advisors can
actually help people when their dealings
with the migration department go bad so
if their visa application is refused or
were sick they hold a visa and that's
cancelled if they're under threat of
being removed from Australia we look at
all those processes and procedures how
they can challenge it whether they can
challenge it by way of merits review or
judicial review so that's what we cover
in 7/8 304 complex content but very
interesting and always the content we
are covering will be in the news while
we are doing it so generally everyone
loves subject and even though they find
it they always agree that it's the most
complex because they've enjoyed it so
much they generally do pretty well for
such a difficult subject and the very
final subject 7/8 305 is quite different
it's a practical subject so it's all
about setting up your business best
practice for dealing with your clients
we look at ethics and I do the final
module on advocacy and Submission
writing and then we move on to our
capstone preparation and we do practice
interviews to help prepare the students
the seven 8305 students for their oral
exam because there is an oral exam 478
305 these are some of our practitioner
lecturers as I said all practicing or
very respected migration agents
immigration lawyers and you get to know
them very well we also have a number of
practitioners who mark do our marking
and they will provide you with some
valuable insight and feedback when they
do that so you have lots of experts to
learn from our teaching and learning
approach is very much making sure that
you are work ready and
particularly orientated when you get out
because apart from any other reason
you've got to be in a position to pass
that capstone assessment or or else it's
all to no avail isn't it so very very
practical assessment tasks and very
focused on making sure that you know
what you need to do to practice in this
area so all our subjects align with what
are called the occupational competency
standards for migration agents you'll
learn more about that when you enroll
and you'll study them in 78 305 because
the capstone assessment is said to be
testing those occupational competency
standards so if you're interested in
getting a head start you can go and have
a look you can download them from the
Mara site and see what the Mara thinks
it's important for our migration advisor
and he is very flexible because
everything is online canvas is a
fantastic platform I'm sure that you'll
enjoy it we've got lots of fun
activities as well and so basically what
happens is you read a page which has a
bit of text a bit of information and
then you'll do one of a number of
different types of fun activities to
make sure that you've understood it and
to consolidate your learning so it's
been very popular we started on
blackboard and last session was the
first session that we had all subjects
on canvas and now we can just work on
making them even better
now here's another opportunity that's
open to students who enroll in our
program we are collaborating with dr.
Laura Smith who is undertaking research
in how migration professionals interact
with their clients so she is working
with us on our client communications
project she's presented at some of our
online workshops which I'll talk about
shortly but more importantly students in
the program have the option to opt in to
her research
and she will then record and view some
of your practice interviews throughout
the program and she'll give you some
feedback now she's not a migration
expert she's all about client
communication but the students who
worked with her and they're working with
her this session have found it very
valuable so we're very fortunate to do
that and you'll also find there's lots
of other exciting resources in our
client communications project to help
you understand exactly how you should be
approaching interviewing your clients
taking instructions from them and giving
advice now normally when we're not in
the middle of a covert 19 epidemic we
have an optional on campus we can't
workshop for for the subjects but this
session I'm sorry to say we'll only be
doing them online so hopefully in your
following sessions we'll you'll have the
opportunity to attend on campus if you
want to if you're based in Sydney I have
to say we run the online workshops last
or this current session and they worked
really well and and I was seriously
thinking that maybe we should consider
moving to that but I do know that
everyone loves the opportunity to get to
meet their lecturers in person and their
fellow students in person if they can
come along to an on-campus weekend
workshop so we won't be having them on
campus for our upcoming session but
hopefully by the time we get to either
our next summer session or the following
autumn when you're finishing up your
subjects you'll have an opportunity to
attend an on-campus workshop if you're
based in Sydney and you want to do that
but you certainly have the option we run
an online workshop anyway even when we
do have the optional one so you won't
miss out and there are distinct
advantages in participating in the
online workshop because that is the way
you'll be doing your oral exam it will
be online and that is the way you'll be
doing your capstone assessment so either
way it's a big plus now let me tell you
a little bit about our capstone
assessment preparation program as I said
there's no additional cost to
participate
in this we've also changed the
assessment for 7/8 305 to an oral exam
that is in the same format as the
capstone oral and fortunately we have
had to advocate very hard with the Mara
and we were only we were only allowed to
meet with the College of Law for the
first time this year it's an independent
assessment and the Mara has been very
adamant that there should be no
communication between the universities
and the College of Law that provides the
capstone on behalf of the Mara but they
did allow us to have an amazing and
we've had a lot of changes made since
the first Capstone's the number of
questions have been reduced the waiting
has been adjusted and for the oral
instead of it being an interview it is
now a discussion with the Assessor about
how you would conduct an interview which
is a lot easier really than actually
conducting the interview and it's a lot
fairer because what we found was with
the reports we were getting was that the
Assessor wasn't behaving like a client
at all because they had all these
questions that they wanted to see
whether you knew the answer to but there
were questions that a client would never
ask and so it's it's much fairer now
that's that the candidates know exactly
what they're in for
and I think it's not quite as difficult
to actually explain to the Assessor that
I would commit see interview by
introducing myself explaining my role
building some rapport with the client
that sort of thing so there are a number
of tasks that are set up as practice
tasks and these are based on the sample
papers made available by the college of
law so that was hard one concession and
we're very pleased to see those sample
papers go up and that's what we've based
our practice activities on practice
interviews our students match pair up
with another student in 780 305 there
are two different scenarios each takes a
turn of playing the adviser or the
client and if they have
opted into Laura's program lor give them
some advice but then you have the
opportunity of joining an online
workshop and repeating a practice
interview in front of me and Tom which
I'm told is a little bit scary but we
will give you some feedback too not just
on your client communication skills but
on the content in terms of migration law
and policy so practice interviews are
part of preparing for the capstone but
also they prepare you for your oral exam
because there is a client interview as
part of the seven 8305 assessment we
have a capstone strategy online class
which is really successful very popular
I think I heard nearly 90 people attend
last time and that is open to both our
graduates and our current students so
our graduates come back and tell our
current students how they are studying
they might have already passed the
written component and be waiting for the
oral component and that's a really
valuable session and finally your
assessment four seven eight 305 70% of
the assessment is an oral exam where you
have that pre-interview discussion you
also do the client interview and then
you need to write up a file note of that
interview so that's when you get to
seven eight 305 the alternative to the
oral exam in seven eight 305 is to
undertake an internship now we have even
in this COBIT 19 situation we have over
a quarter of our students undertaking
internships at the moment in 78 305 and
that is certainly an excellent way to
prepare yourself both for practice and
for the capstone assessment so that's an
alternative to the to the oral exam the
internship too is worth 70% and get 30%
of marks for attending at the internship
10 full days over the course of the
subject and 40% of the marks for a
journal of writing up your experiences
and comparing them with your competency
stand
what you've learned in the program so
our students actually organize their own
internships we have a very small
database of hosts based in Sydney that
we are building up but and if you're
already working in the field then it's
quite okay to do your internship with
your own employer it doesn't have to be
an unpaid one so that's fine too what we
have found today is that most of our
students who have done internships who
are not doing them with their own
employer have been offered the
opportunity to stay on with their host
which is wonderful so if you can do an
internship then certainly consider it
but if not you have an alternate
assessment available there are no
hundred-percent exams so for the first
five subjects the exams are written
exams not oral and they carry 40% of the
mark for all subjects we give you an
incentive to participate in all these
wonderful interactive activities because
there's up to ten marks available for
participating in all the activities that
are available there we have some module
quizzes there are four modules in each
of the six subjects and at the end of
each module you have the opportunity to
undertake a very low stakes assessment
so there are five questions in the quiz
they're only worth half a mark each so
it's only worth 2.5 marks there are four
quizzes all up so it's 10 marks in total
but it's a really good way to check your
own progress see how you how you're
tracking before you get onto the bigger
assessments the other 40% in those first
five subjects is made up of a practice
file and you will undertake tasks as
part of that practice file for a virtual
client you'll be introduced to the
client in a couple of non assessable
activities and then you'll move on to
the accessible practice file tasks and
the final practice file task is actually
one of the questions on the exam so we
do lots of case studies you do lots of
an analysis of tribunal cases and court
cases and we use case based scenarios
for our assessment
ow online discussions our activities so
it's very practical and now over to you
Maxine to talk about the lovely new
building that
you
Thank You Christine so yes welcome
welcomes back and now I just want to
spend a little bit of time speaking
about support and resources that are
available to our students including our
online students of course I know some
participants and some of our future
students don't live in the Sydney area
and so they not have the ability to
access our buildings but if you are in
the area or you travel to Sydney it's
important that you keep in mind that all
students that are undertaking this
course of our other online courses are
very much a student as our on-campus a
student so the same resources the same
support the same facilities are
available to you so if you came in to
the University on a weekend you would
have access to the library in the
reading room and to other facilities
that are available as Christine sent
very lucky delivered to a beautiful your
building building 2 on Broadway we're in
that building for a couple of weeks
before we went into locked out and it's
it's a lovely space there a student
space there we're also in the same
building as the library and we're right
next door to that Tower 1 where some of
our students abilities are so as as
Christine's already talked about with
the optional workshops for students
there have been held whom we have been
able to improve the semesters on campus
it's a great opportunity for students to
get to know each other and to form study
groups so you know as we all know now
online learning can deliver the same
opportunities for students to form study
groups doesn't have to be on campus but
that facility is there for you if you
are able to access campus particularly
in the new building which as I said
houses our library and beautiful large
reading room but there's also lots of
student spaces that law faculties
located on levels 14 16 and 16 so the
top three levels of level 14 is our
students pay
so we have our loot court our trial
courts and areas for students to either
study together or just to have some
social time or some personal time so if
you would we do I come back onto campus
please my main message to you is that
you are very much part of the UTS
community even though you are
undertaking an online course and that
includes obviously the areas around the
university where access to technology
Thank You Christine next slide so this
is more information which is really
important particularly I think for
students that haven't studied for a
period of time it might be it'll be
anxious about what it's like to return
to study I had some postgraduate study
20 or so years after I had completed my
law degree and I would share with you
that I was very anxious about coming
back to study so the law faculty is very
lucky that we have a director students
which is a role that not all law schools
have so Stuart Lowe is our director
students you can see - its photograph
there and his role the directors genes
role is to really be the face between
student body and the faculty he's not a
counsellor he's not a cruise counselor
he's an academic
he's a practitioner and what Stuart is
able to do the students is to give them
some advice to work with them to give
them some guidance around their study
plans around taking leave of absence I
know there's been several questions
tonight in the QA and the chat about how
many subjects you could undertake in in
the Graduate Diploma and I know
Christine's given some very clear advice
about what is reasonable what enables
you to really have that deep learning
and to be able to understand interpret
and apply the complexities of migration
law so students will go and see Stuart
about either dropping
object about taking leave of absence
about slowing down very lucky with the
migration or practice core cities also
offered over summer and many of our
students are doing courses with summer
offerings will slow down during that
autumn and spring sessions and then be
able to have a little bit more space and
time to study over summer now of course
this has been proven to us during over
19 our director students is accessible
doesn't have to be a face-to-face and
indeed it's not at the moment
a face-to-face meeting still it's
contacting or by phone by by email etc
so we encourage all students to to have
that just to have some that they have
those admin questions a bit a little bit
more than an admin question though they
really want some personal contact it's
not just a a simple question that could
go to our student administration unit
the second resource that we have it's
particular I think again relevant for
students who may not have studied for a
while just trying to get their head
around how do I start how do I begin
that first assessment and where are the
resources available to give me some
confidence about you know being able to
to be able to understand interpret and
to be able to apply their learning so
you just helps as you can see on the
slide there is our higher education
language presentations Support Unit it's
located in building one so it's right
next to our building and building to and
I liked you to have a look at the
website after this evenings webinar you
can work with helps they also work
remotely and they're obviously becoming
very expert at doing remote support and
resourcing the students I think
particularly is the students that are
feeling that they just need to have not
so much about the content about
migration Lord that migration practice
but around the structure of assessments
around the thinking back into being a
student and one of the strategies that
will really support you to be able to
manage time to be able to manage or
really unbundle what your what your
sessemann tasks are about
also recommend helps and then our Career
Service is and Christine's a lot of work
with the Cree service for the migration
law and practice students like Curry's
is available obviously to all our
students whether they be face to face
juice or online students and they've
done a lot of working recently with
internships as as christine has said him
students had the ability to do an
internship it's optional but we trying
to promote these internships and careers
reaching out I mean as you would know in
thirties it might be working in the
profession many migration advisers are
sole practitioner so unlike say in legal
practice it could be very large firms
and yes there are some migration advisor
since it's not quite so easy to to
locate internships but it's Christine
our students are doing really well the
kree's are there to assist with
internships they're there to assist in
skills around applying for jobs around
career planning and we have a
postgraduate careers advisor in the
crease service that would be for
students that are undertaking me
postgraduate migration law and practice
course and again very well place they
share to say building as we do so if you
are in Sydney or if you're coming to
Sydney you can make an appointment to
see them they've also got a lot of
resources on their website one one
including a professional mentoring
program that they have made that they've
established about a year ago so we're
very lucky to have such a quite a broad
service Thank You Christine next slide
please
fees now you've probably when you're
looking at whether you've got the the
time the ability and the financial
resources to undertake this course so
you may well be aware of what our our
fees are there there there worked out on
the slide there worked out on a credit
point base
the total of the 36 credit points are 6
subjects of 6 credit points is $21,500
our fees are competitive with the other
law schools that offer the graduate
diploma migration law practice and fee
help is available for this course there
are no common supported places for the
Graduate Diploma in migration or a
practice but fee help is available for
any of our UTSA graduates out there that
have studied with us doesn't have to be
in law it could be in any other
discipline or course across UTSA you're
also entitled to the 10% fee savings so
that's something to keep in mind one
thing that Christie might have mentioned
you know it wasn't that I wasn't paying
attention I was paying attention but I
was also trying to answer questions in
the Q&A in chat and this does come down
to the the planning that we recommend
around the progression or how many
subjects you do in the Graduate Diploma
you can enroll in subjects and then
proximately four weeks after some
semester commences we have our census
date all universities have a census date
and you can move draw from a subject or
subjects before the census date and if
you do that then your you don't don't
don't not charge that subject or do you
receive any academic hour repercussions
so you don't fail the subject can do
that and some students I think do do
that to get an idea of what the
workloads like to get an idea of when
the assessment tasks and you there four
weeks into semester they have a there
have been a much better ability to see
what the workload will be like now we're
not suggesting that you enroll in six
subjects and then withdraw before the
census day and it's most important that
you do withdraw before the census date
if you are going to because once that
census date I said it's the government
in post date that all law schools have
once that since state art it's over and
if you withdraw then then there will be
a financial and an academic penalty
except in very rare circumstances but
there's more information there's a
slight eligible
see help and our calculator Thank You
Christine you've enjoyed study the
graduate to point of migration law
practice you've developed a love of that
area of the law that area of practice
and possibly thought you'd like to do
some more study you want to go on not
only be at migration advisor but also to
be a legal practitioner certainly
possible to do that of course as a law
school we offer a law course both at
undergraduate level and a postgraduate
level so a postgraduate law course which
leads to admission as a legal
practitioner is the juris doctor and the
juris doctor
like all the degrees consists of about
three-quarters of core subjects
regardless of which law school you
undertake a law degree at would be doing
these subjects include subjects such as
constitutional or criminal or equity
administration law etc in the JD still
approximately two and a little bit of
their three-year study during those core
subjects students then have the ability
in the JD to choose five elective
subjects to complete and with their core
subject that thing that then brings them
to the end of their JD because you are
graduates have a postgraduate course in
migration or a practice you can use your
five subjects in the migration law
practice course to put towards the JD so
you get thirty credit points of what we
call it back standing on a credit
recognition so obviously that's five
subjects that you don't have to
undertake or five subjects that you have
to pay for by the time you complete your
Graduate Diploma of migration law and
practice you will be a UTS alum and that
they entitles you if you go into further
study including the JD to attend percent
savings on your fees and the photographs
we had there is one of our graduate
diploma migration law graduates of the
course who's currently undertaking
Naomi and naomi has taken the leap after
studying the graduate diploma to
continue with us to undertake the juris
doctor
so something that you might want to
think about in the future what you're
gonna taste for law works hopefully you
get are you feel very comfortable as a
UTS student then it's that's available
to you with that credit recognition and
deficit discount
Thank You Christine so it's an
information now about spring session
applications you could also apply for
summer I understand you've got up till
the 12th of July so a few more weeks to
apply for spring session you can see
they're out commencement dates they're
our three sessions across the university
calendar that the Graduate deployment
migration law and practice has
commencing students in each session
which I think it's not the same as other
law school so it does give you an
opportunity if you want to start Muji's
such as free 27th of July or if you want
to start for our summer session and
substitutes in my experience find some
is a good time to dip their toe in the
water things might be it'll be easier in
their professional and personal life
then summer commences in 16 November and
autumn session is on 22nd to February
next year we don't need to say to you
when we're back on campus we don't know
when we'll be back on campus but for us
online learners you're high-quality and
will continue as it has done since since
we commenced of course in 2018 Thank You
Christine okay so now we have time for
questions we've got about 15 minutes for
questions if you would like we've got I
know we've got a couple in the Q&A and a
couple in the chat now Christine do you
want to answer these in a live session
can I hand over back to you and we can
share to the QA certainly I've actually
typed answers while you were speaking to
those in the Q&A but if anybody would
like me to speak more about
anything I'm more than happy to do that
so we have a raised hand is there a
Christmas break yes sort of two weeks
don't tell my boss so the study break
officially is a week but but we don't
schedule any classes over that two-week
period it's still tight though because
the autumn session starts very soon
after summer session finishes now I was
expecting some questions about the
capstone assessment do you want me to
tell you our good news about capstone
earlier yes okay so please don't be too
dismayed by the published results that
you may have seen - the capstone so the
the early cap stones weren't attempted
by any of our graduates because they'd
only just started the program and you
know obviously we're taking a year or so
to work through it so the early capstone
results related to students or
candidates who had actually completed
the graduate certificate rather than
actually I'll put my video on not sure
if you're seeing slides Maxine on me you
don't want to be seeing the big icon of
the video camera
so the initial students that sat were
graduates of the graduate certificate
who didn't register within the 12-month
limit time limit and so what it meant
was that they hadn't studied for a very
long time and also they hadn't learned
about the occupational competency
standards because they weren't even
around in the time of the graduate
certificate so expecting them to pass
the capstone assessment is quite
unrealistic then the very first graduate
diploma students who sat had no idea
what they were in for we couldn't help
them we couldn't guide them because as I
mentioned the Mara was adamant that it
had had to be an independent assessment
and that we could have no import we can
have no contact with
the college of law so it took a while
before we are the first students
graduates who sat with any Peaks really
and they're very limited in what they
could tell us the secrecy provisions are
very tight when you enroll in the
capstone but it was apparent to us that
it didn't seem to be a very fair
assessment and over time over a number
of meetings we've had concessions made
in terms of less questions being asked
in the format changing another thing
that changed is that a candidate has to
now pass the written component before
they're eligible to sit the oral because
it's not cheap it's an expensive exam
and people were paying over three
thousand dollars for the exam and having
to go and do the oral even though they
hadn't passed the written and it was
just a waste of money so it's been
separated it out into two but what that
means is to some extent I can't give you
the news that I was hoping to be able to
give you tonight because due to covert
19-hour January graduates who were our
first graduates to participate in our
capstone preparation program had their
oral component postponed actually
initially it was postponed until July
but we managed to convince the College
of Law to do them in May so they are
waiting for their results but the fact
that they are waiting for their results
means that they passed the written
component so our January cohort as far
as I know all the ones I heard from
passed the written component now one
thing to remember a lot of students a
lot of people in these sessions might
say to me well you know what's the pass
rate how many paths we don't know it's a
privacy issue they're no longer our
students when they set the capstone and
we rely on the Mara to provide us with
the same general figures that are
published that have been published under
Freedom of Information on their q and
A's and frequently asked questions and
so we are still waiting for results of
the January intake because those
candidates haven't finished they don't
have their results of their own
but it's been certainly wonderful
hearing from the students that they
passed the written and they're going on
to the oral now the next capstone was
April and yesterday our students who set
the results who set the April capstone
got their results and over 90 percent
passed the written component so that is
really exciting and the one the poor
students who didn't pass still got 60%
but the problem is you have to get 65
it's not easy but you know they still
did pretty well and I'm sure they'll
know it next time but you don't want to
have to be next time if you can avoid it
because a the cost and B the time delay
so we're looking forward when we finally
get some results later this year to be
able to report some really excellent
results from our graduates who have
completed our capstone preparation we
certainly know much more what to expect
they're working very hard please don't
have any illusions about that don't
think you all you have to do is complete
the capstone preparation program and
you'll be fine our graduates are working
really hard in study groups to make sure
that they are prepared but the common
consensus the common feedback I'm
getting from the means that they have
learned everything that they needed to
know as part of their graduate diploma
and now it's just a matter of being able
to provide that information in the
assessment situation quickly and that
for some means actually practicing their
typing it's very tight time frame to ask
so that's the great news about the
capstone so you certainly don't need to
be as concerned about it as students
this time last year but as I said I
don't you to have any illusions it's
still it's still a lot of hard work do I
know what the pass rate is in last
session no as I said we we don't have
any official results we don't get we
don't get a report that says for example
26 graduates of UTS sat and 18 of them
passed
I'm reliant on the Stu
to actually let me know on our graduates
to let me know and so there might be
some out there I have checked the
register of migration agents and saw
that a couple of our graduates were
registered that I didn't know had passed
the capstone but obviously they wouldn't
be registered if they hadn't but what I
can tell you is that I'm expecting that
I should be reporting results for UTS
students I'm not talking about overall
the the 20% figure that you are quoting
there that you have seen applies to
every single person now that means that
only 20 out of a hundred passed the
capstone
but if 18 of those 20 were UTS students
then I am really happy because you know
hopefully at some stage you will be able
to to get a bit more detail about that
sort of those sort of figures the course
is 50 percent practical and 50 percent
written I'm not quite sure what that
means Susanne there's certainly a lot of
reading and a lot of writing to do
I think the marketing people will
organize a link for the recording
could I talk more about how classes are
delivered please ignore the timetable
the the timetable there's no
relationship to our actual timetable so
what happens is that you will get as
soon as you get access to the subject
site so if you enroll in the upcoming
spring session that commences on the
20th of July you will have access from
the 20th and inspire canvas please don't
be looking on UTS online and missed the
start of the session that first week is
really important because we have a
migration law and practice home site
that has lots of how-to information on
it that you need to spend that early
preparation time before we actually kick
off with preparation week and our
modules you need to work through and see
what's there how to use the legend come
for example now great now students
enrolled in our program are able to use
our UTS library subscription of legend
come you don't have to purchase your own
and that is the invaluable database of
migration law and policy that's used by
the Immigration Department the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal
migration advisors and our students so
you'll be very familiar with how to use
it very soon you do lots of activities
right from the start to get you used to
using
legend and it will become your very best
friend you also do some activities where
you compare it with other ways of
finding out information and that is one
way of convincing you how wonderful
legend Khan is so there's lots to do so
if you do enroll please be ready to go
on the 20th now our first week once we
do start is a preparation week where we
do some preparation activities in terms
of getting used to peer review
activities or discussions or whatever
meeting your colleagues starting to feel
like you actually belong feeling a bit
more comfortable and navigating your way
around the site but once the module
start they are scheduled for other way
week two week three depending on how big
the modules are and you just work
through the pages in that module one at
a time now there will be a number of
activities to be completed there'll be
quizzes there'll be a group activity a
group workshop activity there'll be an
individual workshop activity obviously
when you first start they're a lot
easier and later on in the course they
get a lot harder and we wrap up each
module with an online class so it's not
a lecture
as you progress through the pages you'll
find lots of pre-recorded we call them
snapshots if it's one that I've prepared
it will normally be about ten or fifteen
minutes if it's one that tom has
prepared it will be much longer he will
give you lots of lovely anecdotes you'll
either love it or you'll hate it the
students love to hear all these stories
but some people think they just wish
he'd be a little bit more succinct so
caters for everyone there if you if you
want a bit of a sense of humor and some
great stories then you'll find that
Tom's a little bit longer but we are in
the process of trying to organize
transcripts we've got more than half
transcripts for more than half our
videos so you have the option of reading
the transcript if you don't want to
continue to watch the video so lots of
different ways to that the materials are
presented you get lots of ways to make
sure that you are understanding and of
course you can always ask your your
teachers at any time through the
questions discussion forum you can use
canvas messages if it's a personal
matter more private or just use one of
the the module question forums if you
want to raise something about the
content
any other questions how do I enroll I'll
leave that for somebody else how many
hours per week on average okay a minimum
of 12 hours per week per subject so
although you are allowed to enroll in
three subjects at a time I strongly
encourage you not to do that but as
Maxine said some students do enroll in
three they're keen to get it over with
and what normally happens is at least
half of those students will withdraw by
census date
most of those who withdraw will withdraw
in the first week as soon as they see
how complicated it is to start learning
about bridging visas without knowing
anything at all about migration law or
the visa system and all those things
that you are taught in the first two
subjects most students decide against
that but we do have some brave souls who
managed to complete three subjects per
session and if you have a background in
migration law or you have a background
in law then you're in a much better
position to do that but if you if you
know that you are going to have other
commitments if you're going to have work
commitments you're going to have family
commitments you could think about even
only enrolling in two and maybe only
continuing with one if you've got
English language issues and you need to
engage with helps that wonderful support
that Maxine mentioned they're probably
doing Skype consultations for everyone
at the moment because of Cobre 19 but
normally if you just contact them and
let them know that you're a student in
our program and you're not based in
Sydney you can have a Skype consultation
with an adviser there to assist you when
you're working on assessments and
there's all sorts of english-language
improvements there's lots of online
resources through help send the library
in terms of academic skills and things
so some students just enroll in one
subject thinking we'll okay that will
give me time to have a look at some of
those online resources through helps and
through the library some enrolling too
and then decide I think I withdraw from
the second
it's really up to you about ice I don't
encourage you to take more than two
subjects at a time okay anything else I
see that we are right on time
thank you everyone for joining us I hope
that we've answered your questions and
as I say for enrolling spring please be
ready to start on the 20th of July and I
look forward to seeing you online
Thank You Christine I'd also like to add
my sense to all participants are for
joining us and learning more and more
about the Graduate Diploma you'll also
have the opportunity to ask other
questions if you go into our website and
also like to thank my marketing
communications colleagues for making all
the technology work so thanks everyone
and have a grieve me and stay safe thank
you
