by Greg Li

 

I went overseas to study when I was fourteen. The country I went to was Vanuatu and the school’s language of instruction was French. Both choices were made because they were cheaper. It was cheaper to study and live in Vanuatu. The French international school was also cheaper than its English counterpart. Four years later when I graduated high school, I was fluent in French like any of my classmates. My history teacher once told me that the essays I wrote didn’t give her the impression that they were written by a non-native French speaker. I guess when people speak French to me, they quickly realise I am not a native French speaker simply owing to the fact that I am not European-looking. And I am, in fact, not a native French speaker. I only started learning French when I was fourteen. 

Then I went to university in Australia. The University of Melbourne offered so-called “breadth subjects”. Essentially, they are subjects offered by faculties other than the one a student is part of, to broaden the scope of their learning as part of the undergraduate degree. I was allowed one of those subjects per semester, six in total throughout the duration of my degree. I had the option of studying French again.

Every so often the fact that I speak French came up in conversation and my friends would tell me that I should consider taking French classes. Each time I would tell them I already speak French fluently and I’d rather use the limited number of breadth subjects to learn something else. My reasoning made sense to most people. 

Before enrolling in a language subject, a student has to do a language placement test. The test is conducted online, non-invigilated. The testing page advises that if students are unsure, rather than guessing the answer, they should skip the question, as guessing may result in students being placed in the incorrect level. Students are also required to accept an intellectual integrity clause. They have to agree to complete the placement test to the best of their knowledge and ability to enable the program to place them in the appropriate level of foreign language instruction. 

I was curious where I’d be placed. 

I completed the language placement test and was placed in French 5. Not too bad, I thought, considering French 6 was the highest level offered at the undergraduate level at the time. 

I contemplated enrolling in French 5 until I made friends with people who completed the highest level of undergraduate French studies and found out they couldn’t converse fluently with me. I was, after all, fluent like a native French speaker. I wondered how come I was placed in French 5 and I did not study any French at university for apparent reasons. 

In first year I bumped into a person I’ve acquainted a few times at some events on campus and as a topic of small talk, our conversation inevitably veered towards the subjects we were taking. That inevitably led to them suggesting that I take French, because it’d be easy for me. Before I explained to him why I’d rather not as I did to everyone else in the weeks leading to that day, he said I could even flunk the language test so that I could be assigned to a lower level. That way I didn’t have to work as much to get good grades. And in fact, I wouldn’t need to work at all. 

I stood there, bewildered, considering his suggestion without voicing how stupid it is to spend time and money on a subject just to not learn anything, as he carried on with how he’d flunked his language placement test in Chinese. He’d tried to get placed in Chinese 1 but he still got placed in Chinese 2. I guess he knew some Chinese after all. Obviously that was why he wanted to do Chinese 1. How ironic; the apparent reasons why I didn’t do any French subjects at university were probably not apparent enough. At least, not for some.  

Deliberately choosing the wrong answers at a language placement test was unquestionably an academic misconduct. It was against the intellectual integrity clause. However, as I was told, there were also those so-called “bludge subjects” offered by the university which mostly constitute breadth subjects. The qualifier “bludge” owes to the fact that they were easy, had fewer contact hours, lighter content and assignments, and generally no exams. But most of them were not particularly intellectually stimulating or informative, and one gained a meagre amount of knowledge from them. Many people told me about it in my first year of university. I had some reservations regarding this kind of attitude towards learning. I’d explain to them, as an international student, I have to pay way more for a single subject, so I would like to learn some useful things.

On the train to Melbourne’s eastern suburbs I sat next to a friend, a domestic student. He was one of the people who first introduced the concept of bludge subjects to me. Some students choose to enrol in subjects that are the easiest to get good grades from and they don’t care whether or not they’re actually learning anything. They don’t have the moral obligation to spend an extortionate amount of precious money on a useful subject from which they can benefit. They can afford to do this because tuition is cheap for them. Domestic students pay way less than international students. 

There, the first seed of domestic student privilege was sown in me. I went from insisting that I had to put my tuition to good use to eventually becoming sick of being different, of being the one who couldn’t do bludge subjects because that wouldn’t be morally justifiable given the  cost of my tuition. I wanted to fit in instead of being the one in my friend group who talked about how much more I needed to pay. I got sick of being reminded of how different my life was because I was an international student. Since I could not stop being one simply because I didn’t want to be one, I hid that part of me so that I could blend in. I would never be able to morally justify flunking the test to get placed at a lower level. But the gaslighting worked somewhere else. No longer did I mind the idea of choosing easy subjects to ease the workload. I guess the end goal is, after all, getting the 12.5 credit points from a subject, and when they accrue to 300, the degree. The less we have to work, the less we learn, the better. 

At the end of first year, I discovered the delight of “underloading”. Some of my friends did three subjects each semester and they would complete their undergraduate degree in four years instead of three. Some of them would enrol in a summer or winter subject so that they could still complete their degree within three years while reducing their study load in the standard semesters. As an international student with the restraint of visa duration, I could only opt for the second option. So every time we talked about “underloading” as a group, I grew quiet, hoping others wouldn’t ask me whether I am underloading, and if so how I am doing it. I would hate to explain that I couldn’t extend my degree to four years, because that would mean I was different; that I was an international student who not only had to pay more, but also had to finish my degree within a set timeframe before Australia kicks me out. Admitting that I couldn’t extend my degree and that if I wanted to underload, I’d have to enrol in a summer or winter subject made me feel underprivileged, different, inferior. Like the mudblood amidst the pureblood students of magic at Hogwarts. I regarded “underloading” a privilege of domestic students. 

There, the second seed of domestic student privilege was sown in me. Australian society operates under a system of privilege after all. 

So when I enrolled in my first summer subject at the start of my second year and when I had only three subjects in the semester that followed, I proudly told my friends that I was underloading by one subject. I tried to not sound too desperate to tell them, of course. That’d be conspicuous. When they asked me whether I was extending my degree as if I had the option to do so, I told them I was not, as if that was by choice. I made it sound like I wanted to finish my degree in three years as if I was a determined, goal-driven, hardworking person. I was one, but it felt like if only I could extend my degree, that would unmistakably imply that I was no different to domestic students. 

It’s almost a kind of reverse psychology. How is delaying your graduation good for you? How is it good that you have to take four years rather than three to complete your degree? But it was just this thing – extending your degree – that is so unattainable as an international student made me want to do it so badly. It made me want to taste the privilege that is befitting a glamorous domestic student. Even if it means I enrol in subjects where I don’t learn anything. Even if it means I delay my graduation. 

The summer subject I enrolled in was called “Deafness and Communication”. It met all the criteria for a bludge subject. I learned about a range of aspects of deafness in relation to the methods of communication, technology, and public policies. The subject was run over two weeks, with thirty hours of workshop spread across those ten days. At our first workshop, each student was asked to stand up, introduce themselves, say what degree they were doing, and why they’d chosen to do this subject. When it was my turn, I stood up and said the reason I was doing this subject was that it was offered in summer and of course I also wanted to learn about deafness. For sure, like everyone else in the room, right? As the microphone went around the classroom, I heard some people say that the no-exam aspect of the subject attracted them. Of course, I thought, that’s why you do a bludge subject, right?

At the back of my mind, something still didn’t sit right. A tiny voice still questioned me whether this subject was worth the four-grand tuition and two weeks of my time. I learned something from the subject, and it was cheaper than any other science subjects I could’ve taken instead, so I rationalised to myself. But was the content worth the money? Was I being irresponsible and wasting money? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. 

Thinking about wasting money, I was reminded of an international student whom I met at the start of first year. He told me in his usual impatient, nonchalant, indifferent demeanor that he didn’t go to the workshop for the entire semester because it was not compulsory. I thought he would care more because as part of the subject, he or his parents paid for the workshop. I thought being an international student meant that they would care more, but they didn’t. I thought they couldn’t spend an extortionate amount of precious money on university just to not attend the workshop. It turned out, it was not because tuition wasn’t extortionate for them, it was because money wasn’t precious. I thought I cared too little to the point that I did a bludge subject just to fit in. I condemned myself when the one who should’ve been condemned wasn’t me. 

However, I did decide that one bludge subject was enough. 

The inevitable happened at the start of third year. Despite me earning almost twenty grand a year from working two and a half days a week at my part-time job that all went to the university, my parents’ meagre savings and however much my father earned was on the brink of being used up. We could use what was left to pay for the first semester that year. But that meant we wouldn’t be able to afford my final semester. Melbourne University was going to send me an email to threaten me with the cancellation of my enrolment, like they did every time I’d been late with the payment. Amidst the pressure, I considered transferring to Victoria University, where tuition was less than a half compared to Melbourne University. 

A year later a good friend of mine would tell me it’s all a game. How much universities are charging is a game. The rental market is a game. Public transport is a game. In fact, all businesses are games. The universities, real estate agents, the landlords, Public Transport Victoria, and all business owners are players in the game. If they’re charging so much and there are still students who want to study here, tenants who want to live here, commuters who want to take public transport, that means they are playing the game well. She said I shouldn’t hate the players; I should hate the game. I’d rather not hate the players or the game. But nobody can simply choose to not have a roof over their head, or to not take public transport, or to not have a university degree when their career goal demands one, simply because they hate the game. If what is required to be a good player in the game is simply to monopolise the game, is it still fair?

I did not transfer to Victoria University. 

In early July that year, before the second semester started, God saw me through. We were granted permanent residency and I became a domestic student. All of a sudden the university changed my fee paying status from “Overseas full fee paying” to “Australian full fee paying”. The amount of fees went down and if I didn’t pay for it before the due date, the government automatically gave me a loan. I never received those threats from Melbourne University ever again. I was free from the bondage of paying tuition upfront. 

But being free from the bondage didn’t make me turn a blind eye to the suffering of other international students. I still saw my friends struggling with living on their own, budgeting over grocery and other spendings, working part-time to scrape up enough money to pay for the fees when their parents couldn’t pay for everything. My friend J, who had been proactive at university and went to camps with everyone else, suddenly became a recluse in her second year of university. She stopped going to her campus whenever she didn’t have classes. She traded the time where she hung out with friends for more work hours. She stopped going to camps. It turned out she was trying to save money on public transport by studying at home and camps were too expensive. She was saving up every cent so that she could pay for her groceries.

Then I would be reminded of how privileged I was. I asked her if she needed help financially and offered to help if she did. I listened quietly, careful not to reveal my domestic student privileges.

I underloaded properly in semester two of third year. What I imagined as an exercise of domestic student privilege didn’t feel like it. This time, I did it not because I wanted to fit in. I was already in. However, my part-time job demanded more time from me that a full-time study load would allow. 

I told my friend A that I underloaded the year before when we met in my fourth year as a manner of explanation as to why I was still finishing up my three-year undergraduate degree. With what felt like a half-question half-statement sentence, she said, you know I can’t do less than four subjects a semester, right? Later in a conversation with other international students, she said she doesn’t feel like she has rights when she is in Australia. She only has rights in her home country. 

My friend C asked me how come I was allowed to work so much to the point that I had to underload. I told him I don’t have restrictions on my work rights and I can extend my degree without any concern about my visa. 

Then I would be reminded of how privileged I was. I chose my words meticulously, careful not to show any traces of superiority that I used to think belonged to domestic students. But people say only those hypocrites who need to pretend not to feel superior need to consciously suppress their superiority. I think that’s true. 

Once I was studying with my friend K, an email popped up on their laptop.

You have the following sanction(s)

Please note that your fees due for payment. Please check your Statement of Liability and arrange payment. Late payment fees may apply. If your fees remain unpaid your enrolment may be cancelled;;;;

This is an automated email.

This is an unmonitored email account, please do not reply.

That was the exact same email I would receive every time I was late for payment. The formatting, the coolness of the sentences, the questionable punctuation, the grammatical error had always been the same. The apparent errors in the email which made the serious tone seemingly feigned gave me an impression that it could even be from a scammer. Ever since I first received this email in first year, I’ve been wondering why Melbourne University had decided to omit the word “are” and what was the purpose of those four semicolons. Was it a means of intimidation? I was reminded of the desperation I’d felt when the same email came to my inbox. The desperation I had not been able to voice then, which I struggled even more to voice now. What could I have said? I used to get those emails too but I don’t anymore because I am a (privileged) domestic student? 

These conversations stirred something in me that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. But it didn’t feel great. I didn’t feel how I imagined my domestic student friends would have felt when they told me they were underloading. 

I loathed being an international student but also the privileges of a domestic student. Domestic student privileges are nice for me. But they are not if there are people who aren’t privileged. I feared being asked how much I pay for university because all my friends are paying more. I feared being asked where I live because I live with my family while my friends live by themselves. This fear was different to the one I’d felt when I feared being asked whether or not I was underloading. This fear had to do with self-preservation, preservation of my own dignity and morality. In other words, I feared that I’d grown to be apathetic and careless to what international students are going through because that simply doesn’t bother me. I feared that I’d become indifferent to the human conditions that I used to live in, that I’d consider myself superior. Privilege tasted like indifference, bitterness, almost disgust. 

Privilege didn’t taste the way I thought it did, far different from what I had envisaged in my first year. 

Those friends are international students like who I was before. The only difference lay in my email inbox that Saturday morning after my dental assisting shift. I was mentally calculating the two hundred dollars or so that I’d earned that day, happy about the Saturday penalty rate that was going to help me pay off the fifty-thousand-dollar tuition for that year. Four emails, from the Department of Home Affairs, automatically generated, like the sanction email for late fee payments I got from the university, contained four permanent resident visas, one each for a member of my family. It almost seemed unreal, ironic, that something as impersonal as an automatically generated email that advised me to take a look at my visa that was attached to it, could make such a significant difference in my life. I stopped calculating how much I made that day, because it didn’t matter anymore. The government would give me a loan and not a single cent of tuition would come out of my bank account until I start working. It was a delightful feeling. I was free to take as long as I wanted to complete my degree. I was free to work as much as I wanted. I could choose to stop studying if I believe that was the right decision for me. 

However, this might have been one of the last seeds of domestic student privilege that was sown in me. But it didn’t grow. Other than delight, the privilege felt like sadness, desperation, disappointment, indignation, and imploration for unfairness. What was the product of the seeds that were sown in the past now waned and died. 

Privilege isn’t a pleasant feeling, albeit it helped me to continue to study at university. I realised being privileged doesn’t equate happiness so long as there are people who are not privileged. But by definition for the privileged to exist, unprivileged need to as well. So is privilege a good thing?

Back to what my friend told me about how everything is a game. I thought to myself, maybe it can be a game if your future and your education aren’t on the line. It’s easy to see anything as a game if you know you cannot lose the game, or if you have other options if you happen to lose the game. But the university is going to cancel my enrolment if I cannot pay the fees. I would be denied education. I don’t know if I can see this as a game. Maybe the ability to see something as a game is a privilege in and of itself. Maybe some people are privileged in one way and other people in other ways. I am not privileged in the sense that I don’t have to worry about finances, while some of my friends are. They have the privilege of lightheartedness to see their education as a game because they have support they can fall onto. But I am privileged in the sense that I am eligible for various kinds of government support. 

If everything is a game, I want it to be fair.

So I stopped seeing it as a privilege. I stopped thinking that I am different from other international students. In the same way that I didn’t like the feeling of being different when I was an international student, I am well aware that they don’t like to be different, whether it’s a good difference or a bad one. International students still struggle, some more than others. But feeling bad for them isn’t going to solve the problem. They don’t want to be pitied or be treated with condescension. They want to be understood, empathised, and treated with kindness, not because they are different or underprivileged, but because we care. Sometimes they don’t need financial help. All they need is friends, a community, people that cared for them despite their differences. 

Now that I am a few weeks from graduating from Melbourne University; now that I have not paid a single cent of tuition since July of 2024; now that I am working one day a week at my part-time job as I finish off my last semester; now that I have so much more free time but I don’t even bother asking for more shifts because Centrelink is paying me as I study, in the end, whether or not I am privileged; whether or not I have managed to see the whole thing as a game, I think I won. I won in a way that I could only have dreamed to win; in a way I could only have prayed to win.