mkny

I've been living in Sydney 2.5 years so far - I eventually got the visa. I followed "less points, but safer" - they generally do not believe you can do any two full-time activities at the same time. Good luck!

Indeed, the option of "less points, but safer" is attractive. So, I am going to claim the following experience as "Not Relevant": Software Engineer (full-time, confirmed by ACS): 01/Feb/2005 - 22/Feb/2007 However, in addition to sending all the official documents regarding my confirmed by ACS Doctorate, I am going to send the Ref letter and financial docs regarding my "Not Relevant" (double quotes) experience at Sun - with comments for CO that because the experience was in parallel with the postgraduate studies I JUST IN CASE marked it as "Not Relevant". Another point: in November 2006, December 2006 and January 2007 I worked at Sun NOT in parallel with my postgraduate studies, because Doctorate lasted from 01/Jul/2003 to 09/Oct/2006. Do you think it makes sense to "break" my Sun’s experience into a big "Not Relevant" chunk and the 3-month-long piece of "Relevant" experience to show for DIAC? Thank you

JoannaAch, the following is exactly my case, though I passed some tough exams and attended some lectures: "Many PhD degrees are given based on research work/publications and prepared thesis and not on lectures/exams." Do you think it is real to explain the situation to DIAC? In terms of the "highest" degree - please see my reply above. Would be great to hear from people with "Bachelor + MS".

I see, thanks for your comments. Regarding "so it would be questioned": I really worked hard on both my job-related phd thesis and worked in-parallel full-time: I have the needed financial documents as evidence for my work experience and all the docs confirming my phd studies, even my advisor's reccomendation. The activities are REALLY hard to combine but I did it working over holidays and long hours... Should I really "hide" it now somehow? Or persuade DIAC ? Don't you know about similar cases by chance? My nominated occupation is SW Engineer. In point (a) I meant that while completed relevant Bachelor degree is required to count following work experience, according to some people, overlapping of Master's / PhD with working may be a problem. I have seen a couple of comments like "they (DIAC) count experience only after your last / highest degree". Would be great to hear about such cases from people with e.g. Bachelor+Masters - it should not be very rare, I hope..

Dear all, I have the following overlapping of my postgraduate studies (A) and my work experience (B): (A) 01/Jul/2003 - 09/Oct/2006 : Full-time postgraduate studies with obtaining a Ph.D. degree (ACS has recognized it as AQF Doctorate in Computing). During the course I attended some lectures, prepared five scientific articles, did some teaching and worked on my Ph.D. thesis. It all was possible because I had flexible hours schema during my described in (B) employment. (B) 01/Feb/2005 - 22/Feb/2007: Position of Software Engineer (worked in St. Petersburg, Russia for Sun Microsystems, full-time - confirmed by ACS): I really worked 40 hours per week – my manager confirms it in appropriate reference letter. In respect with the above, I have a concern that DIAC, although I was working at Sun Microsystems after receiving my Bachelor degree (recognized by ACS) will NOT count either my Doctorate or my experience at Sun because: a) Some people on forums wrote that any work experience can be taken into account by DIAC only after receiving the applicant's _highest_ degree, i.e. Doctorate I my case; b) The two full-time activities, I mean (A) and (B), took place in parallel for some time, and it causes me to worry. So, today, I have 70 points with my experience at Sun and 65 ones without it. What would you suggest? - Declare for DIAC my experience at Sun as relevant or not relevant?