THE WEEK THAT WAS

Week five of my diploma was a pretty eventful one. On Tuesday, I passed my lash and brow tinting and brow shaping practical exam and the workbook assignment. That means that I'm now qualified to do those three things - which admittedly aren't exactly hard to do. The alleged lash and brow tinting kit that was promised to us as part of our course fees is still no where to be seen however. The teacher doesn't know when it will be arriving and can only tell us that they've been ordered. What I don't understand is why they weren't ordered before we all started!

I'm not sure how all the other beauty colleges in Brisbane go about their business or if they are any better, but at this particular stage I wouldn't recommend the College of Natural Beauty. I am hoping that it will improve and that I will soon have some positive things to say later on down the track. It's evident that the college's number one priority is money making. They have their own shop on the ground level of the building that sells all sorts of natural therapy supplies. I've not been in there myself, so I'm unsure of pricing, but I heard that students are entitled to a discount (but I'm not sure what percentage).

The class I am still most unhappy with is massage. I changed teachers a couple of weeks ago after being unhappy with the original teacher. The new teacher is great at teaching the subject. I think the college doesn't consider that WE are paying THEM, and a lot of money too. I suppose that they are trying to also teach discipline  but there's no way that after I graduate that I would take a job that was equally as strict. I'm also unhappy with this class because last week the teacher said it was compulsory that we buy a holster for our massage oil. She said they were $15 and that we could get them from the college's shop. So I went home and sewed my own holster to save money. This week when I brought it to class I was told that I wasn't allowed to use it and that I would HAVE to purchase their boring black plastic one from the college shop by week eight (which is the week of our practical exam). The money isn't the only thing I'm annoyed about, it's the fact that it's compulsory to buy it, and we weren't told before we enrolled that we would be required to buy things, and they couldn't just provide them to us as part of the fees, or even just have them in the classrooms!?

This isn't the only little untold cost that has popped up so far. Before enrolling I was told about this fun excursion that we go on for a day to a farm in Mt Tamborine where the certified organic skin care range Jasmin Aromatique Organics are produced. But what I wasn't told is that this trip is during the school holidays and costs $45.

Another very important misleading thing about the college is the amount of attempts they give you on assessment items. On orientation day at the college they told us that we get three attempts to pass any written or practical assessment. Written assessment is in the form of exams sat in class and workbooks that you take home and work on over a few weeks. But over the last couple of weeks, we have discovered that we really only get one proper full attempt. Their idea of a second attempt is (with the written stuff) having 30mins or so in class to AMEND any mistakes, and (with the practical stuff) doing a couple of parts over that weren't done correct the first time around in about 10-15 minutes. If it can't be amended/corrected in the set amount of time and you have to resit a practical/exam it will cost $200 payable before you're allowed to have your second attempt and can't be added to your VET-FEE HELP debt. Any third attempt requires you to pay the fee too. Until you pay the fee and have your do-over, you can't progress on to the next stage of the class. I was originally led to believe that the 2nd and 3rd attempt were included in the fees and were complete do-overs, not just a tiny chance to amend.

If you hadn't noticed already, I'm a huge whinger. When I feel inconvenienced I am compelled to whinge to whoever is in charge of what's taxing me. I've sent complaint emails a couple of times now to the admin at college about things that annoy me so hopefully this could make some kind of difference.