Moving

Australia / May 14, 2005 / John / 0

This is a bit of a strange entry because I can’t actually publish it yet. Or at least, we can’t mention our names. Thing is, we’re planning to move to Australia, but as yet it’s a closely guarded secret for a number of reasons. A lot of people are likely to be upset by the decision – family, friends, and employers and we don’t want to make any announcements until we know for certain that we’ve been granted a permanent citizen visa.
Well, if you don’t want to tell anyone yet, why are you posting this blog message? Well, to be quite honest, because it’s one of the biggest events in our lives and we want to keep a record of everything we went through to get there (or not, as the case may be). If we ever get there, then I’ll publish these articles to help out other would-be migrants.

So, here’s the scoop. First of all, we’ve been talking about this move for literally years but have never really had the motivation to find out about it. We officially have the motivation. Between lifestyle changes, various traumatic events, peoples attitudes and a host of other things, we just want to go. It’s that simple.

I only wish the process was as simple. Australia base their immigration system around a points method whereby prospective migrants are graded on how desirable a citizen they are. My main sticking point is that I don’t have a degree and that’s one of the primary requirements. What I do have, though, are bits of various qualifications (including the first year of a computer science degree at grade A) and eleven years of experience in various IT managerial positions.

What I need to do is submit a CV with some project reports and a whole pile of supporting documentation to the Australian Computer Society and they look at the whole lot and decide whether or not I’ve demonstrated learning to degree level. If they say “yay” then I have enough points and we can move. If they say “nay”, then we’re scuppered.

Currently, I’m working on pulling together all that information. It’s a mammoth job, but sooner started sooner finished, as they say.

John

UNIX geek, wannabe cook, musician, book-lover, and all round good-guy.