When I decided to come over Sydney as an international student, I had unmatchable excitement and optimism. I was excited to start in a new school which was pretty well-known for the course I was taking then (Pre-press and Graphic Arts) and believed the mix of my fashion, arts, corporate and leadership background and experience was a great head start for a career in a country reputably so full of fresh opportunities.
A lot of optimism there was definitely let down.
Firstly, a lot of my experience came from freelance work.
As a lot of make-up artists, stylists, writers or events organiser could say for themselves too. Freelance barely counts for anything in this country, or when moving to another country, for that matter. Freelance cannot be credited as official skills in most systems, some people whom I handed my resume to gave me a "Bull shit, yea right." face while skimming, and most of all, nobody can refer you to anybody as nobody knows you at all.
Secondly, "school" was horribly disappointing.
I don't know how it got to this point, but because Australia offers a huge doorway for immigrants (compared to other first-world dream destination countries such as US of A, UK) it has a huge influx of international students, a lot with hopes of being eventually absorbed as citizens. This resulted into schools lowering their standards of acceptance so they can accomodate more international students. Why? Simple: it's a multi-billion-dollar industry. For plenty of universities / colleges, the money they get from international students covers 20-90% of their total revenue. I can say I have not seen a single Aussie citizen in class for both schools I've been in.
A basic example of what taints the quality is the acceptance level of English fluency. The Department of Immigration and most schools require an IELTS exam result of their specified minimum score. However, if an applicant's English level (pardon the language as I believe it is the best word to use) sucks, they can alternatively take a short English course which the school itself will offer or has an affiliate school who does the English classes.
I have passed by a few of these classes and for what I can say, picture a teacher holding a banana with BANANA written on the blackboard then repetitively saying "Ba-na-na. Ba-na-na. Ba-na-na." Thus said, your chances of learning proper, or even just grasp an understanding of, English is not much farther as it is if you eat an entire copy of Merriam-Webster's latest dictionary edition.
School lessons over a span of a week, you can learn within 2 hours on your own time if you have a working understanding of English. This is my case with schools who simplify things. On the other hand, some schools will teach as they will, and let those who can't understand flow like seeds in the wind. I have met too plenty undergraduate students on their graduating year and still has no idea what they have just studied for the past years.
Lastly(for now), I cannot seem to get a break.
Without local experience in my desired occupations, it appears that nobody wants to give me a go. Every interview always asks about local experience, local experience and local experience. (Seriously though, how will I get any local experience if everybody wants local experience?) I am even very willing to work for free in internships to get a grasp of an Australian working experience and learn a lot from within the industry. However, most of the decent ones want you to be in a graduating year from a chosen few(and expensive) universities. Then, once in a while, I get some false hope in getting a better position with start-up business guys but the case happens is that I feel like I was doing the teaching than learning. Also, being on a student visa restricts your working hours and flexibility, making most employers put you in the bottom of the picking.
I have heard too many stories such as some guy from the UK coming here and claiming to be DJ (but actually has no experience of being one at all) and now has an awesome DJ career or the girl who worked as a kitchen hand then in one occasion had a conversation with some company big gun, wowed him, then got a great job offer. I think these are exaggerated versions of people who got some break in a career, worked hard in it, and are now in a good position. (Not that I don't believe these stories. They could be very true!)
The point is not that I am hoping for a CEO position offer(not that I would turn one down), but all we need is a break. A break to prove how hard we can work and show what an asset we can be rather than being reduced to doing dead-end jobs when we have more to offer.
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