LITTLE ANNOYANCES

Things that tax me about the College of Natural Beauty - being as judgmental and organised as I am, it was bound to happen eventually. I just have to say, this college is not entirely organised, or they at least don't have backup plans in place.

First of all, I originally was told that uniform fitting would occur on the orientation day. This of course never happened and we are entering week three still with no uniforms. We have also not yet received the lash and brow tinting kit required for practicing at home for our practical exam in week four.

It's the same deal with student ID cards. None of the teachers were sure what was happening with the ID cards and we just haven't been kept informed about what's going on with them. I've heard rumours from other students that we could go to the library and get them - but I never heard this from a teacher. I'd like to have been kept informed every step of the way.

The next thing is that even though my very first class (Lash and Brow Fundamentals) was delayed a week because of the college closure during the flood peaks, assessment dates and the workbook due dates haven't been delayed by a week. I've been trying to rush through the workbook for this class as it's due Tuesday, and all the answers to the questions are supposed to be found in the resource documents that we were given on our first day (a mixture of info pages and slides from PowerPoints shown in class), but of course they're not all in there! Most of them aren't the kind that can be found on Google. It's the same deal with the workbook for body massage class, but thankfully this class seems as though it might be a bit more organised - though I've only attended this class once due to missing my second one last week because I had a bit of a car accident with a taxi on my way in.

I had a Google of the optional text books where it seems they derive a lot of the learning material for the course from. I only got to see sample pages of the books online, but it seems some of the information that we derive workbook answers from are contained in the text books...but there is of course no way that I'll be able to shell out $300 for these books just to be able to pass my course like the girls who CAN afford the books. There's a limited number available from the college library but that is of course first in best dressed (which is never me).

Everyone was also supposed to receive a log in and password for the online learning modules and quizzes which are beginning to become due in week three (next week), but low and behold I still have not received a log in and the teachers have no idea what's going on, but I'm still going to have to adhere to the due dates despite it being their fault so that I don't fall behind.

Another thing that grinds my gears a bit, given my background in graphic design and proofreading, is that the spelling and grammar is shocking throughout the workbooks and resources! Particularly for lash and brow class. I expect that if I'm paying over $10k to learn at this college, that they would at least proofread their materials a few times over. Even the contents page doesn't marry up with the alleged page numbers.

And of course there was that little mishap on the day of my first body massage class where we all spent the first half of the day with the wrong teacher and then had to change over.

So I'm overall a bit disappointed by these things considering how much I'll be paying to learn here. I expected that the beauty therapy industry is an industry where organisation and perfection are key, and I am very worried to be learning at an institution that is wavering on those two important things. At the train station I've been seeing girls from the other college I had originally considered (Australian National College of Beauty [ANCB]) that all have their uniforms and only started last week. It looks as though the dress code isn't as strict too. So here's hoping I didn't make the wrong decision. In any event it's too late now if I did!

In other news, I picked up a couple of massage oils (Sweet Almond and Apricot Kernel) for practice from Perfect Potion in the Queen Street Mall. I was delighted to discover that because I'm a natural therapies student, I get a 10% discount! Usually one would have to show their student ID to obtain the discount but the lady let it slide that time.