What to Do If You're Expelled for Not Meeting GPA Requirements While Studying in Australia?
Before going abroad, seeing the campus life photos sent by senior students from Australia made me envy their overseas study experience. And they were showcased as outstanding students at the school, which planted a seed of studying abroad in my heart. When I actually arrived in Australia, I found that the veil was lifted, and studying abroad wasn't as glamorous as it seemed. The difficulty of studying was several times greater than that of international high school back in China.
This is what Nick said to me after seeking my advice. Nick is a sophomore at UTS in Australia, but he has been studying as a sophomore for four years now, intermittently. Many people may not understand why. It turns out that Nick had excellent high school grades in China, so his parents sent him to study in Australia. With his outstanding performance, he successfully received an offer from UTS. However, in China, Nick always lived with his family, and they took care of many things for him, so he didn't have to worry. After arriving in Australia, he couldn't adapt to the unfamiliar environment. The learning model at Australian universities was also vastly different from what he imagined. Moreover, he hasn't made any friends in the few years he's been here; he's all alone. Over time, he felt very distressed. Eventually, due to depression, he returned to China for treatment for a year, then went back to Australia to continue studying. His condition never fully recovered, fluctuating between good and bad. So he spent four years still taking sophomore courses. After muddling through the second semester of his sophomore year, he continued to let himself fail courses, his GPA got lower and lower, and eventually, he lost the will to continue his undergraduate studies and chose to drop out.
Australian universities have always been known for being easy to enter but hard to graduate from. While the admission threshold may not be particularly high, it is no easy task to pass all courses without failing or repeating a year and graduate smoothly from the Group of Eight universities! Students from top Chinese universities like 985 and 211 universities who pursue graduate studies at Australia's Group of Eight candidly say it is the most stressful school they have ever attended! It is a school that makes you give up entertainment, sacrifice sleep, and shed tears and sweat to graduate!
In the 2021 QS World University Rankings, seven of the eight Australian universities still rank among the top 100 globally. Among Chinese universities, those in the top 100 include: Tsinghua, University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Fudan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University—all of which are 211 or 985 institutions. In terms of academic pressure, as everyone knows, it's easy to get in but hard to graduate. It's impossible to expect to play for two years and then graduate; various academic tasks await you, and the plagiarism check rate for theses is extremely strict.
When studying abroad, be prepared to work hard and study diligently. Studying abroad to broaden your horizons is definitely worthwhile. After graduation, you will firmly believe that this trip abroad was not in vain.
In hindsight, many students go abroad due to family arrangements. Since not many parents in China are well-informed about studying abroad, many still hold the belief that simply going abroad can gild one's resume. However, when they actually arrive overseas, they realize that studying in Australia is not as easy as applying and graduating. Australian universities are very academically rigorous. For example, if classmates copy each other's homework, teachers will check the plagiarism rate, and your assignment could receive a zero or worse. In severe cases, you may not graduate. Punishments for cheating on exams are even greater. By the time students reach their sophomore or junior years, many Chinese students have already dropped out, which is quite common.
If you cannot graduate due to insufficient grades while studying in Australia, transferring to another school is an option. However, transferring takes a lot of time, and in many cases, you can only transfer to an Australian college or even be stuck in a language school, making it difficult to return to your original school.
In my view, under the current circumstances, you can directly apply for a master's program. The master's program is shorter in duration. For example, taught master's programs in the UK take only one year. This not only resolves the issue of degree certification but also enhances the value of the degree, which is certainly much better.
