​HINDSIGHT TO LEX'S UWA LAWSUIT

What was interesting to note is that following the eventual release of my academic grades most lecturers were in abscondment to say the very least, aka. unreachable.  I did get the chance to confabulate with some certain individuals prior to release of my academic results, in particular Frank Tudor and Paul Tiernan at UWA, and Kate Fitch at Murdoch as the lecturers were intent on discovering the true nature of my ambitious career plans ahead of time prior to releasing their ‘adjusted’ grade results.  Of note was the fact that at Murdoch the academic grades were not ‘normalised’, and I am led to believe that was the case as well for my tenure at UWA for the given time in question (academic staff at UWA & Murdoch simply ‘chose’ my grades and I was not assessed for my work as one should have been).

At this pre-screening meeting at UWA only a few students were selected to be interviewed by Paul & Frank, and as best as I can remember two classmates may have been interviewed also, this mayhap being Jobin, Gaurav and myself (I am sure more were brought into question).  In this interview we had to highlight our study habits and I was quizzically inquired as to how I could have answered every single question in each of my exams.  My perspective of the whole ordeal was that it would have been ameliorative to the betterment of my own self and being.  When inquired as to how I managed to stay awake to study so darn much I made mention I was drinking about 2 litres of caffeine/coffee a day and taking energy supplements by which time they laughed and indicated to me that there would be nothing I would have to worry about.  The matter of the fact the whole experience was a remonstrance of the extent an individual can seemingly be brainwashed (and that being the operative word as myself and the other students only had faint recollections of such ‘secret’ meetings – it felt like I had been hypnotised for I forgot of this instance in near entirety were it not for the fact that I keep a diary and made vague mention of it).

It is indistinguishable to note that in the meeting orchestrated by Kate Fitch that her initial grounds for summoning me for an interview lay with the basis of an in-class assignment that I submitted to Christina Tan on the concept of ‘Public Relations’ ethics – note, I graduated in honorary standing in ‘Ethics’ at the university of Notre Dame so I knew the course matter in relations to this topic better than the lecturer herself.  Kate Fitch informed me she also received complaints from Renae Desai and Tyron Love because I was finishing the class work several many weeks ahead of time, and hence they did not like my attitude as I was making the whole course look too easy and in the process discrediting the university itself.  At the beginning of the meeting Kate Fitch was resorting to endearing insolent abusive words but upon hearing my tone of voice two tones deeper in comportment, and my valid reasoning as to the pre-mentioned lecturers juvenile behaviour, her mannerisms and speech drastically changed and that is when Kate Fitch proceeded on a discourse to try to encourage me from dropping out of university as she simply stated, “you would have nothing left to learn by doing an additional degree in Public Relations”.  She indicated to me that studying at Murdoch would be a waste of my time as I was clearly operating from a level far above that of a mere student and that indeed it was a waste of my money.  She asked, ‘what do you hope on getting out of this course?’, by which I explained that I would be setting an Australian record for the most universities studied in a single semester and that by being a student I would still be able to qualify for the oil and gas engineering graduate roles which necessitated I be a recent graduate of at least two years from date of completion.  I then point out discrepancies in the assignments of other students (who achieved a mark close to 100%) in contrast to my own assignment that was fully structured and referenced but with only a small mark assigned to it.  Kate Fitch became embarrassed and portrayed a variegation demeanour in her own personality.  It was clear to me then that my grades for Murdoch would transmogrify into a similar experience that I had in UWA, and this is the main reason I requested to sit my exams via a computer instead of handwritten (not to mention I suffer from tremors on my hand) because then I would be able to keep a copy of my last exam as testable proof that indeed I had been victimised.

Constitutive to a prosperous start as a graduate within the oil and gas industry, it was a fundamental necessity for my academic grades to be of an excelling nature.  I was well aware of the competitiveness to attain a job within the oil and gas industry and whereas my undergraduate academic career was completed with little and no study (at higher results than 68% I can assure you) my post graduate experience was different, that is I studied a lot and is was very much within my desiderative interest to outperform all my competing colleagues whilst still remaining altruistic in essence.  My academic appeal for UWA occurred the very same evening the long overdue grades were received, and I can assure you my mental state was of utter incredulity as I literally knew the whole coursework off by heart, after all I did study blo*dy well so...  Unlike Murdoch, I did not openly succumb to the laissez-faire bureaucracy – at Murdoch I could see the same story repeating itself and I was well aware of the futility of an academic appeal (I did keep two of the three exams though – alas, I had no chance to insert my USB stick to download a copy of the additional subject missed without being noticed, but I did obtain some proof).

Unfortunately for me the very nature of being a top performer did not guarantee much time to build on a proper and better appeal (David Bacarrini already indicated to me he ‘binned’ my exam paper – it was not my fault they didn’t release the grades in time for me to lodge an appeal).  Before I knew it I was back undulatingly into the cycle of studies, and the procrastination in reply to my appeal was starting to affect my study habits.  Lizhen Gao, the supervisor for 322 page dissertation on ‘Iron Ore Processing’ finally approached me and personally advised that it would be best for me to drop my appeal altogether because otherwise there would be ‘severe repercussions’ – Brett Kirk (School Dean at the time) also advised me of similar grounds but in a much more passive way.  What could I do?  The lecturers all indicated to me that an appeal would be useless, but I knew what I had done, that is I had graduated with 100% in seven out of eight classes; the only exemption being ‘Ocean Engineering’ of which I scored 78% because I seemingly interpreted an equation that was given to us wrongly, in fact I thought I noticed an error – I doubt they would have purposely given me a different exam paper so that I would err, this as I sat my exams in a separate venue to other students for the peace and serenity (fact is I was given an extra ten minutes time due to my hand tremors but I still made sure that in all my classes I left before all other colleagues as such was the extent of my studious lore).

Did I mention that in ALL my classes I was the first to submit and hand in due assignments in all my post graduate studies?  It was hence then warranted, and prearranged, that I never be caught of plagiarism which in turn ought to have left me on a very good standing at the board of examiners – UWA was bureaucratically organized at the time.  All late assignment handing in rules were inapplicable to me, and it was clearly apparent to all lecturers that if there ever was one student doing all the work for his fellow classmates then that person would have to be me given my social interactions in classes and tutorials – students flocked to my spreadsheets in full view of lecturers in some tutorials.  Of note is that my assignments at UWA did portray some errors, this as engineering should never be a process of articulate nature but instead of results.  During my classes in ‘Drilling Engineering’ I actually submitted my calculations on the basis of being a first draft, and I exceedingly voiced my concerns to both my lecturers that ALL students were colluding and plagiarising thus accentuating the need that indeed I was different from the rest.  In fact, one time Vamegh asked a fellow classmate by the name of Rohan as to who had been working together with whom.  I was not there when this happened but I later found out that Rohan denounced the WHOLE class as a colluding plagiarising bunch with the exception of me only – already bearing notion that these lecturers knew full well as to whom forsooth was the shining impeccable student in class was (me).

In fact I tried my best to be amatorious to all my fellow students but this proved to be an overwhelmingly hard ordeal especially when some were condescending in the comportments towards me during our time together.  It was amazing to notice that fellow classmates started doing other people’s work once they attained jobs – that is, a few students didn’t even complete their own assignments because they were too busy in earning money (I helped some students in this situation as well).  I did attain one interview upon graduating (out of many hundreds of other applications) and this was with ‘Woodside’ based on Perth.  What I found insulting about this interview is that the interviewees were placing words for my answers in the questions without me being given a chance to answer the questions myself.  Mind you, I was in the middle of studies when I was requested for an interview and I did not have the time to memorize the whole history of the organization and yet focus on my studies, although this should not have been a problem if my grades were portrayed correctly.  The position was for a ‘Drilling Engineering’ graduate, a unit of which I was assigned 68% despite memorizing the ENTIRE textbook inclusive of the advanced sections not assessed within the course.

As it happened the years went by me fast, I graduated in mid-2008 and it is now 2013 and I am still unemployed having only worked a few months in demeaning roles and having pursued additional education in three other universities (the whole time looking for work).  I deserved better than this and by attaining a student loan I expect to be assessed proper, as is within my favour (which clearly was not the case).  And in the end I guess I just joined the ranks of the overqualified, but yet inexperienced, minority.

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