From MUELC Presentation Ceremony February 2003

Ms Ruth Rosen, the Director of Melbourne Access Programs - MUELC Melbourne, noted that the last course had almost 600 students in the various English programs, coming from 35 countries around the world. Students are progressing into most of the university faculties and into Monash College diplomas with many groups in General English from universities in Japan and Korea. The teachers, administrators and students have all worked hard to ensure that the courses are successful and students have achieved their goals.

Guest Speaker: Professor Alan Lindsay, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic and Planning

Prof. Lindsay Prof. Lindsay outlined the responsibilities of his many roles as the senior academic responsible for academic policy and management of the quality of programs and teaching and learning throughout the university in Australia and globally. He spoke about the various backgrounds and paths the students would be taking upon completion of their MUELC course. Some returning home, many continuing on to Monash University for postgraduate, undergraduate degrees and to Monash College diplomas. Prof. Lindsay wished the students every success in their future studies at Monash.

Selected student speakers' comments from recent ceremonies:

(1) Being a foreign student is not easy. In addition to academic challenges, we also have to face lots of other constraints such as cultural barriers, climate differences, living away from family and home, trying to understand how the system works here, and so on. Therefore, it is my belief that we are all very lucky to have this IAP program before we start our respective courses. Not only because we had two wonderful, excellent and funky teachers, not only because we had a lot of interesting guest speakers on various topics, but also because the program was well run, very efficient and excellently designed to cover comprehensively all aspects of social and academic live in Australia. In short, we found it very useful. The IAP has provided us with a solid foundation to cope with the challenges we may face here. Now we are more confident and, on behalf of my friends, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed their efforts, energy and time to the success of this program. May all the friendship and good relations that we have developed up to now last forever, even until after we finish our studies and leave Australia. Let's make a promise that we will always keep in touch.

(2) We are very happy to be here at the final ceremony for our studies at MUELC. When we arrived 15 weeks ago we were in shock, we were much less confident and we felt only the challenges that faced us. The ELBP has been a capacity-building program and has helped us greatly in settling down. The teachers were caring, encouraging, and helpful in all aspects of their teaching styles. They treated us like adults and taught us how to learn and how to use the academic things like referencing and the information systems that Monash offers in the library. We are looking forward to academic life here at Monash which we know is tough, but we feel more confident that the ELBP has prepared us well to cope with it.

(3) When I first arrived I had a negative feeling about the IAP, mostly because my family was unable to join me. But now, after five weeks, I realise I have enjoyed the course and I speak for myself and others in feeling much more enriched. We have learnt a lot and have had the opportunity to learn about life and culture here in Australia, we've learnt to adjust to the academic requirements, we've done a report on our Departments and a research essay and seminar presentation and we've debated and argued and also learned how to handle the computers and the system. Our excursions to the City and to Sovereign Hill gave us experiences of a very different kind and they were very enjoyable. We've made really good friends who have supported each other and we've been like family while our families are not with us. A special thanks to our teachers for a really excellent course.