Full-time and Part-time Status
See also: Credit Points and Work Load.
At Cairnmillar full-time study is 100 credit points in a year, or 50 credit points per semester. You are still considered full-time for most purposes (e.g. Centrelink or student visa) if you take up to 75% of the standard load. At Cairnmillar this would be 75 or more credit points in one academic year or 37.5 credit points or more in any one academic semester.
Part-time study is any credit point load lower than 75%. Most part time students take 2 x 12.5 credit point units per semester, for 25 credit points per semester and 50 credit points per year. Anything lower than 25 credit points per semester is considered underloading even for part-time students and should be carefully considered and may require special permission
Due to our small numbers many units are only offered once per year per cohort. Part-time study is only available for some programs. If you are unsure if part-time study is an option for you or want to consider a reduced workload, talk to your Course or Program Coordinator.
Full-time for Extensions
Students on placement or thesis extensions are often worried if they will still be considered full-time (e.g. for Centrelink). Cairnmillar applied the following estimate to work out if you are full-time or part-time on an extension:
The industry standard is to define 75% of a full-time study commitment as one that is equal to or greater than 2.5 days per week (minimum of 18.75 hours).
This issue most often seems to apply to students who have extended their enrolment to finish placement and/or thesis. We currently use the following formula:
- Thesis extension: 2 days (14 hours per week)
- Placement: just weighted based upon the number of days the student is attending/undertaking placement
Using these parameters, a student undertaking just thesis would be considered to have a 2-day per week part-time load. However, if they were also doing one day of placement as well as the thesis extension then they would be considered full-time.
A student with an extended placement an no other enrolments would only be considered full-time if they were undertaking 2.5 days or more of placement per week.
Changes in Study Load Status
Change by withdrawal: If you are full-time and then withdraw from more than 25% of your study load (see: Credit Points and Work Load) then we will change your study load to part-time for you when we process your withdrawals.
Change at unit enrolment: If you are part-time and choose to enrol in a full-time load at a later stage, or if you were full-time but then only enrol in a part-time load, please email education@cairnmillar.edu.au after you enrol to let us know so that your study load status can be amended and your expected course of study end date updated as needed.