Removed Monash courses - what happens?

[lpnly]

Monash recently removed some courses from their website and course guide - such as business/health science and commerce/pharmaceutical science, I was wondering if this means they are totally gone or are they under revision by the University? And if Monash usually add new courses towards the middle of the year or something?

[alondouek]

Those courses are probably no longer offered by the university and won't take any new students into those courses. Monash released a mass email about mid-way through last year about the discontinuation of certain courses (though they didn't mention which) so I assume the ones you've described were some of those detailed in that memo.

This sort of thing has happened in the past (e.g. with the Bachelor of Behavioural Neuroscience, which was discontinued in 2009 (if I remember correctly)). Any existing students of the course completed the course as normal but they stopped offering it for new intake and wrapped up the course when the last cohort graduated.

I wouldn't expect any of the recently scrapped courses to make a comeback; I would imagine these courses were placed under revision while the course was still running - after all, it wouldn't make sense to interrupt course intake if they were to re-approve a course.

To my knowledge, Monash has never added a new course in the middle of the year, and any newly-created course will have been promoted well in advance of the first student intake.

[keltingmeith]

Importantly, sometimes when Monash removes a course, it's because they don't see it as relevant anymore, and may open up a new course that does seem more relevant.

For example, the Science Scholars course had its last intake in 2013, and the new Advanced Science (Global Challenges) course was then created for the 2014 intake.

[lpnly]

To my knowledge, Monash has never added a new course in the middle of the year, and any newly-created course will have been promoted well in advance of the first student intake.

Yep, so I meant mid year promotions of a new course for the 2016 intake, would there be any?

[alondouek]

If by 'promotions' you mean the university advertising new incoming courses, then the only real answer I (or anyone outside of the university administration) can give you is "maybe".

If I were forced to speculate: Probably not. Given that the uni has cut several degree offerings and haven't (to my knowledge) created any new ones that aren't direct substitutes for previous courses - such as BSc Scholars --> BSc Advanced GC - then I'd presume they aren't looking to institute more degrees. It's probably a cost-cutting measure more than anything.