It had to happen. As much as I adored being a QUT student and all the prestige that came with being a member of the elitist midwifery cohort, I really had no other option than to transfer. The desire initially sprung from detesting the travel required & the copious hours spent on public transport (which in QLD really really sucks). Then I got super involved in my church’s youth group (which made me want to be home more and available to work a day each week in the church office). Then I got really poor (because all the travel plus the uni work made it impossible to have a job). And then, registration for health professionals went national. How did this influence my decision you ask? Well. 
Let me just quickly say that national registration is a really really good thing! But it meant that registration requirements for midwives underwent a whole heap of changes. Because of all theses changes, QUT wasn’t quite sure if the course we midwifery students were completing would leave us able to be registered at the completion of the degree. They told us that it would take at least 12-18 months for them to sort out the degree so that it would meet registration requirements and that we’d have to wait to see if we’d graduate eligible or if they’d have to extend our course another year or more. It was at this point that I decided to transfer into plain old nursing as opposed to the dual degree. See - I’ll finish my nursing, then do a postgraduate degree in midwifery (and then my masters – clearly I’m a sucker for study) once the course is officially aligned with rego requirements. Then I decided, heck if I’m changing degrees why not change to a university closer to home? I settled on Central Queensland University’s distance nursing program and am just about finished my first semester there. The change has enabled me to get a job and work at the church whilst continuing on toward my goal of becoming a midwife. Win, win right? Almost.
Being an external student is hard. And I find I really have to apply myself so much more than I did as an internal student. I’m getting really good grades so far but I could definitely procrastinate a little less, and study a little more. Which I totally plan on doing next semester!
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