Hmm i don't recall seeing you posting here previously, did you just started uni this session? And just wondering what are you doing in unsw? Commerce, engineering?

Well this is a common issue faced by almost everyone here when they first arrived, every dollar you spend here will automatically be converted into RM without even you knowing it. This kind of mindset will however, starts to fade away after a couple of weeks or months depending on individuals.
Hows uni so far? Hope you enjoy climbing the numerous stairs in uni

Edited: Fade away is probably a better term rather than disappear. Cheers

This post has been edited by jae: Aug 5 2007, 10:37 PM

Well i have always been wondering will one do the other way round, which is to convert everything from RM to AUD when one gets back to Malaysia for holiday? I haven't went back yet since coming to Australia so i have no idea about that, but i'm thinking that if you are already used to buying everything in AUD, would you feel that everything somehow becomes alot cheaper when you go back home?

This post has been edited by jae: Aug 7 2007, 09:39 PM

Okay, put it simply, if your parents can afford to spend approx RM100k a year to send you here, how would they not be financially capable?
I understand how you feel, everyone here has went through that during their first few months here, but trust us, after a while you'd know you cant do anything to change that, and especially here in sydney where everything is expensive, all i can say is spend wisely and you should be fine within your budget.
And regarding looking for a job, it'd be a great advantage if you have previous working experience, and i reckon there would be more job opportunities in the city. However, given the limited working hours under your visa, don't expect the pay to cover a big percentage of your expenses, in most cases i would say it'd be good enough to be able to cover your rental from your pay.

I'm doing commerce first year, what about you? First year? And just wondering are you living on-campus?

Oh you have just transferred from one of the colleges in malaysia i assume?
I'm living in the city right now.
Haha well its 3 days of uni for me, but then i usually work for another 3 days after uni, so yeah..
UNSW meet up session? Heh that sounds interesting.

Not only restaurants, basically if the employer is Asian regardless of whether its a restaurant, cafe, ktv etc, i reckon theres a high possibility that you will get way less than the minimum wage.

I have never worked with an Asian employer, but from what i heard, they usually pay you in cash, meaning the tax office(ATO) is not involved nor aware of your employment, so its probably a lot harder to enforce the minimum wage rule. I reckon this is considered as illegal employment under the law, not sure about this though.

Cost of living in Sydney is high, but i'm pretty sure Melbourne's cost of living is pretty much similar to that of Sydney. Tuition fees wise, i'm not too sure about medicine, but for other courses, the fees here are similar to those in Monash and other Go8 universities, with UniMelb being the most expensive among all.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but afaik you cant possibly get a ter score of 100, max is 99.5 or somewhere there.

Just thought i would add a bit of info on this matter, I had all my uni application work done with the help of my college university placement centre, in fact they even guided me through my visa application after i got my COE. I cant speak the other colleges, but for my case(I was in taylors btw), i think they did a pretty good job. Anyway, my point is, instead of looking at the various agents like IDP, you should try and drop by your college's placement centre and have a look.

I wouldn't deny that, in fact I have experienced myself how unfriendly a few of the staffs there can be, but thank god the counselor that attended my case was really friendly, so no complains on that part. About waiving your application fees, I'm not really sure as i put in my application during the placement day when the various universities' admission staffs were there to promote their university and thus waiving the application fees for all the applications made on that day.

Btw, the taylors college they are talking about is the one here in Australia, not the one in Subang SS15. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think these two colleges have any relationship of whatsoever except for sharing the same name.

This post has been edited by jae: Sep 27 2007, 11:50 AM

Do they actually have such thing in Melbourne, or rather Australia?

You have flies over there, we have moths over here. Damn those moths are annoying, and there are thousands of them out there. I have killed like 15 of them yesterday in my room before i went to bed, and yet there are still more

Those restaurants are obviously more expensive because of their location. Try to look around the city and you should be able to find some cheap steaks around, cheapest i've seen was 10 bucks for a steak and a schooner.

About the minimum wage, it all actually depends on your age and what sector are you working in.
If I'm not mistaken theres a whole list of minimum wages published on the state government website, and i reckon different industry has different minimum wage. Age is also an important factor in determining your rate, the general rule of thumb is the older you are the more you get.

Well choosing which uni to go is one thing, can you afford to pay the full tuition fee if you decide not to take the scholarship is another issue. If getting the scholarship or not is not an issue for you, I'd say go for the top university instead.

AFAIK, unless you took SAM for pre-u or other australian year 12 or TOEFL, i doubt you can get into any uni in australia without your IELTS. Correct me if I'm wrong, but i reckon you would still need IELTS even if you take up an australian twinning course locally, not to say that there is any twinning for UniMelb except for the architecture course in Taylor's

I have seen the packages offered by TPG, they seemed really good and value for money to me. How stable is their network and how big is the difference in terms of the actual speed you get compared to the advertised speed?
Bigpond no doubt is stable and fast, but their packages are expensive, and when it is fast, one tend to exceed the cap easily, which is something you wouldn't wanna happen.

msn + browsing shouldn't be too big of an issue if you don't mind the slow loading speed, but gaming and downloading with 56k? o.0