Welcome and what this session covers

G'day, and welcome to the National Virtual Expo. My name is Rob Malicki, and this session is on Monash University. Before we kick off, I'm on Gadigal Land in Sydney. I'm acknowledging the traditional custodians of this beautiful land on which I live and work.

Thank you to those people who are joining me live on the live stream. If you'd like to ask a question or put a comment, you can do so in the chat, regardless of whether you're at the Expo hub, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube. We'll try to get to all of them at the end of the session. And if you're watching on the replay, you can also ask questions by going to the Choosing Your Uni Discord. Details are in the session description below. Ask any question you like, whether it's specifically about Monash, more broad or general, or about your personal decision that you're trying to make. We'll make sure that everybody gets a response. Parents, you can also ask your questions in our Facebook community. Details for that are also down in the session description.

So, Monash University. This is an incredible institution. In the next 20 minutes we're going to be talking about what it's known for, who it's not for as an institution, its academic strengths, its research, its different campuses, and what kind of experience you might have there. We're also going to look into the hard data on how Monash performs on global rankings, but more importantly, how it performs on the national independent data on things like student satisfaction, graduate employment, and graduate starting salaries. I'm going to take you behind all the marketing hype and tell you how to look at those numbers and figure out whether or not this institution is right for you.

Who Monash is for, and who it is not for

I'm going to cherry-pick one statistic about Monash University: it ranks fourth in the world for pharmacy studies. Not in Australia. In the whole world. It is the fourth most reputable institution on the planet. And that's the kind of institution we're talking about here today.

Monash isn't for everyone, but it has some extraordinary areas of strength. Let's talk about who this is not for. If you're looking for an intimate, cosy campus, Monash, with its 70,000 students and its big campuses, might not be the place for you. It's literally Australia's largest university, and you will be a face in a very large crowd unless you make the effort to find your people. Of course, you're not going to be studying with everybody. You're going to be studying in your niche academic area, which brings it down a little bit. But these are big campuses, and you're going to have to be more proactive at a place like Monash to get the most out of it.

It also probably isn't for you if you're looking for a place where you can live in the city and walk to class. The main campus at Clayton is 20km southeast of Melbourne's CBD. It's a suburban campus, and to be honest, it's a bit of a pain to access. You've got to take the train and then a bus. The bus network to Clayton is pretty good in general, but depending on where you're coming from, that could be one of those things that's a little bit of a pain. The Caulfield campus is more accessible, sitting on the main train line.

If you're someone who wants guidance and support handed to you on everything, this might not be your place. But if you are looking for an experience where the number of opportunities available to you is simply phenomenal, from an academic point of view it's one of the strongest universities in the country. And when you've genuinely got an opportunity to explore a vast array of academic and extracurricular opportunities, Monash could absolutely be the right institution for you. It's a globally recognised degree that will be recognised not only here in Australia, but in many places around the world.

Student experience at Monash: a first-hand perspective

Rob: What's it been like starting up studies here? It's second semester now. What's it been like?

Guest: It's been good. There are lots of support networks and things like that in place if you need people. Especially, I know for law, with the Law Student Society, there are lots of people you can talk to there.

Rob: Tell me more about that. When you say support and the Law Student Society, what else is the uni pretty good about giving you access to?

Guest: They're really good with it, especially with the MSA. It depends which party is in, but we've implemented lots of support systems for different groups of people, like for international students, and things like mental health support networks as well.

Three big strengths: research firepower, industry connections, and global footprint

Let me give you my three big things about Monash. The first is that the research firepower is genuine. This isn't marketing talk. Monash runs over 120 research centres and institutes, and it has dedicated facilities in biomedicine, energy, and technology. Its pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences programme is ranked fourth globally, as I've mentioned, and its education faculty is ranked eighth globally. In fact, across all subjects, 21 Monash disciplines sit in the global top 50. That kind of breadth and depth of research strength and teaching filters down into what you're taught and who's teaching you. This is an exceptional, next-level institution on the academic side.

Secondly, there is the industry connection side of things at Monash, which is really baked into the institution's DNA. Monash targets having 10,000 students in placements and industry-based experiences every year. So getting industry experience is not optional extra. It's actually core to how degrees are designed and the expectation on students. They have over a thousand industry partnerships, and there's a whole technology precinct on campus dedicated to startups and innovation. If you're the kind of person who wants to understand not only what you're learning, but how that connects to actual work in industry, Monash really takes that seriously.

The third thing about Monash University is its international footprint, and it's unlike anything else in the Group of Eight. Monash is the only Group of Eight university with full international branch campuses. More than that, Monash has literally been leading Australia's international engagement in the education space for decades. There's a campus in Malaysia that's been running since 1998, and one in Indonesia that opened in 2001. It's the first foreign-owned university in Indonesia. Alongside that, there is the Prato Study Centre in Italy. This is your opportunity to go and have an international study experience in Tuscany, where that experience seamlessly fits back into your degree. If you're looking for a degree with genuinely global reach, where you could potentially study a semester in Kuala Lumpur or spend time in Prato, Monash offers these opportunities in a way that most universities simply can't.

Now, I want to be honest. There are trade-offs. A university as big as Monash can feel impersonal, and the student satisfaction scores, which I'll get to later, reflect that. The Clayton campus, while it's comprehensive and extremely well equipped, isn't a buzzing city location. And competitive programmes like medicine and law have entry requirements that are seriously high. We're talking about ATAR scores, the percentile score out of 99.95 that most school leavers use for university entry, and that's typically above 95 for law and around 97 to 99 for medicine at Monash. None of that should put you off, because you do know what you're signing up for, but entry standards can be really high. We'll also talk about pathways in a moment, because Monash does really well in that space.

Academic strengths: pharmacy, education, business, engineering, and science

Let's get into the details of academic research strength, because it's one of the places where Monash is genuinely mind-blowing. In pharmacy and pharmaceuticals, fourth in the world and first in Australia. There is also the Parkville campus, which sits inside Melbourne's biomedical precinct, one of Australia's most concentrated health research areas, and in fact one of the most concentrated in the entire southern hemisphere. If you're interested in pharmaceutical sciences and clinical research, very few places globally can compete.

Education I mentioned, eighth in the world and first in Australia. If you're thinking about teaching, that really matters, not just for the ranking, but because it signals the quality of research that's informing how you'll be trained.

Another area that gets a lot of attention at Monash is business and economics, and it's a genuine powerhouse here. In finance, it ranks 25th globally and first in Australia. In economics, it sits 36th globally, but also first in Australia. The business faculty is one of the areas where Monash is absolutely excellent. It's the largest faculty at Monash, and there is a lot of industry engagement, as we talked about earlier. Callout also the postgraduate programmes at Monash: it's one of the few institutions where almost exclusively those postgraduate business programmes are taught on campus. The quality of those programmes is exceptionally high and recognised across Australia.

In engineering and science, the offering at this institution is absolutely comprehensive. In mining and minerals engineering, Monash is ranked number one in Australia, and across all engineering disciplines it offers work-integrated learning that connects you with industry on an incredible scale. On the research side, the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute is a major centre for cancer research, neuroscience, and genomics. The Monash Energy Institute focuses on sustainable energy solutions. And the technology precinct isn't just a research facility. It's an innovation hub with startup incubators and accelerators. If you're interested in building a business, getting skills in an institution like this is really invaluable.

Campuses, faculties, and day-to-day practicalities

Let's get into the different campuses, because they are quite distinct. Clayton is the big one, with around 26,000 students, comprehensive facilities, an incredible research hub, clubs and societies, and an enormous range of opportunities. Caulfield is closer to the inner city, with a strong focus on business, arts, design, and architecture. The Peninsula campus specialises in health and education. And Parkville, as I mentioned, is the biomedical precinct, where the specialist pharmacy setup is located.

There is a free shuttle between Clayton and Caulfield that takes about 30 minutes. For most undergraduate students, Clayton is going to be your home base, with 200-plus clubs and societies, 24/7 study spaces, and the full range of campus infrastructure. Sporting facilities are excellent. But it's not a city campus, as I've already talked about. You've got to take the train to Huntingdale and then get on a bus. That's the reality.

There are ten faculties in total: art, design and architecture; arts; business and economics; education; engineering and IT; law; medicine, nursing and health sciences; pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences; and a pure science faculty. It's totally comprehensive. Whatever you're interested in, there's likely a faculty and a research community built around it. And that spells opportunity if you're the kind of person who's keen to go out and explore and find your place in the world.

Pathway options into Monash and support for diverse students

I alluded to pathway options, because getting into Monash with its entry requirements can be challenging depending on your background. Monash College offers foundation and diploma programmes that can directly transfer you into second year of an undergraduate degree. There's also what they call the Monash Guaranteed Scheme, which adjusts entry requirements based on your life circumstances, particularly if you've had some disadvantages, if you come from a lower socioeconomic background, or if you've faced other sorts of challenges. So Monash is looking to support students from all walks of life, not just those from elite backgrounds who've had all the advantages.

More student voices on life at Monash

Rob: What's it like studying here at Monash?

Guest: It's great. It's so much fun. I'm in second year, studying art, and it's just the best time. We're both on the Society of Art Students, so we've got right into extracurricular uni life.

Student satisfaction, graduate employment, and starting salaries

Let's get into the numbers. Firstly, student satisfaction at Monash is 73.1%. So a little under three in four students is satisfied with their experience at this university. That comes from the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching survey, an Australian Government initiative. It's independent, and hundreds of thousands of students respond. So you can really trust that data.

73% actually puts Monash below the national average. And for a university with Monash's enormous international reputation, that's quite underwhelming. But context really matters. Large, research-intensive universities like the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales also score low on overall student satisfaction. Melbourne is at 73%, and UNSW is at just under 72%. The pattern is consistent: the bigger the institution and the more research-focused, the less personal the experience tends to feel. It doesn't mean the education is worse. It just means the experience is different. There's a good chance you'll have classes with someone who's doing a doctoral degree and researching at the same time, but that doesn't necessarily make them the best teacher. Huge class sizes also mean you have to be more proactive. If you're not going out of your way to look for different opportunities and experiences, they aren't necessarily going to come and tap you on the shoulder.

However, let's look at graduate employment. At 82% of domestic students finding full-time work within four months of finishing, that's a strong result. It puts Monash at the top of Victoria for graduate employment, and nationally it's ahead of most of the Group of Eight universities. The industry placement model I mentioned earlier, those 10,000 industry experiences per year, that's doing the real heavy lifting. Key employers value the Monash label on a resume.

That also shows up in the median graduate salary. At $73,000, Monash is above the Group of Eight average and comfortably above the national median for starting salaries. What that reflects is Monash's strength in business, engineering, and health sciences, which are jobs and careers that typically have good starting salaries.

Global rankings and how to interpret them

Let's look at the global rankings. Monash sits at 36th globally in the QS World Rankings, which puts it fifth in Australia. In the Times Higher Education rankings, it's ranked 58th globally and equal third in Australia alongside the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney. These are elite global positions on any measure.

What I'll say is that global rankings tend to measure things that might not be relevant to you. They measure research output, how much that research has been cited by other academics, and international reputation. What they don't rank is what you're going to experience in your Tuesday morning tutorial in terms of teaching quality. So look at international rankings, and subject-specific rankings in particular are genuinely helpful. But the global number itself, I don't give it too much importance unless you are specifically looking for the prestige factor. That's okay if prestige is what's important to you, and Monash does perform really highly on it. But to evaluate all those numbers and find the ones that are actually relevant to you, that's where the Choosing Your Uni platform comes in. It's independent, it's free, and it takes under 30 seconds to sign up. You can ask our AI agent about your particular circumstances, what matters for you, and get independent advice based on your interests, preferences, and goals, all in one place rather than endless Google searches.

Comparing Monash with other universities

If I were evaluating Monash, I wouldn't be looking at this institution alone. I'd be looking at some others. The first comparison is the University of Melbourne. Most students looking at one are probably looking at the other. They're both Group of Eight universities, both in Melbourne, both globally ranked, but they're structured differently. The University of Melbourne has what's called the Melbourne Model, where you first do a broad undergraduate degree before moving into a specialised graduate professional programme. So if you want to study law or medicine at Melbourne, you first complete an undergraduate degree before entering a graduate programme. That's great if you want to explore and build more depth in your academic background. Monash, by contrast, offers direct-entry professional programmes at the undergraduate level. That's a substantial difference in how you spend your time and how long it takes you to get through. The University of Melbourne ranks higher globally, but has lower graduate employment numbers and a lower median salary than Monash. Monash is bigger, more industry-connected, gets you into your professional disciplines earlier, and has those global campuses we talked about.

The next obvious comparison, if you're prepared to move interstate, is the University of New South Wales. It's the nearest equivalent in terms of being a large, research-intensive Group of Eight university with strong engineering and business. It's a similar scale, a similar global ranking, and similarly innovation-focused and industry-connected. But the big difference here is Sydney versus Melbourne. Sydney is Australia's largest jobs market, but it's also Australia's most expensive city. Melbourne, on the other hand, has that cultural element. Sydney is incredibly multicultural and vibrant, but Melbourne has a cultural flair that sometimes Sydney misses out on. Those are two things worth weighing up.

Third, I want to throw a bit of a curveball: Curtin University over in Perth. Curtin isn't a Group of Eight, but if what draws you to Monash is that industry integration, practical career focus, strong engineering, and strong technology, Curtin offers a very similar philosophy at a slightly smaller scale. It has fantastic employment outcomes, a lower cost of living, and it's in the mining space, which is one of the best in the world. If you're looking for that career-connected model and you're not so fussed about the Group of Eight brand, Curtin is worth a look.

And looking more broadly, if you're thinking of moving interstate, Adelaide University, the newly formed institution that has brought together the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide, covers basically every single discipline. It's a research powerhouse with a footprint that encompasses the entire Adelaide city and South Australian region. Depending on your field of study, Adelaide Uni is a really interesting sideways option to consider.

Audience questions: navigating a large campus and finding your passion

I've got a couple of minutes to take some questions. Let's start with those submitted in advance. The first one: Monash's Clayton campus is massive. Is it easy to feel lost there, especially in first year?

The short answer is probably yes, if you're looking for an intimate campus environment and small class sizes. Even I, having visited many times over 25 years, go to Monash and think, wow, this place is big. It can feel a bit intimidating at first. But you have to look at the upside. The number of opportunities available there is genuinely mind-blowing. If you're interested in exploring and discovering and opening doors, this is a university that has as many, if not more, opportunities than any other university in the country. You are going to have to get out of your comfort zone, join clubs and societies, get involved in study groups, and make sure that when you go into those first few classes, even if you're in massive lectures, you use the smaller tutorials as your place to connect with individuals in your course and find your people. At an institution like Monash, clubs, societies, and your tutors become even more important than they might be elsewhere.

This is a more general question, but it's such a good one and so common for so many people. It's from Tony, who asks: everyone tells me to follow my passion, but I don't really have one. Is that a problem?

No. I honestly think the whole "follow your passion" thing is completely overdone. It's like 1% of people who have genuinely figured out that thing that absolutely lights them up, particularly when you're young. Almost nobody is just, "this is exactly what I want to do and who I am and what I'm going to become." It's incredibly rare. And honestly, a lot of people who say they want to become a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer, a lot of it might be their parents talking or family history talking. You've got to be honest with yourself about who you are, what you're interested in, and what you want.

Choosing Your Uni's platform is a great place to start exploring fields of study. We've got AI-powered tools to help you discover things that you might be interested in but haven't found yet. But you're not broken if you haven't figured it out yet. Most people who become passionate about something, and I'm pointing at myself here because I'm passionate about helping people find their direction, I didn't know that in high school. I didn't even know it in the first five years of my career. Most people will tell you that you find what you love by getting skills and experience in things that you enjoy. So don't put pressure on yourself if you haven't figured that out yet, even if you're older and going back as a mature student after a previous career. Life is about exploration. Go to uni, open doors, try different things, join different clubs, do elective subjects outside your field of study. And when you find something, walk through that door and do a little bit more of it. That's how, step by step, we eventually find the thing that truly lights us up and the place in the world where we can create an impact.

Thank you for joining me in this session about Monash University. If you've got questions I haven't got to, I'll be answering all of them in the Choosing Your Uni Discord and in the Facebook community for parents. Make sure you jump into those, and I'll see you at another session during the National Virtual Expo. Thanks for joining me.