Why I Quit My Naturopathy Degree (Brutal Advice Included) 

Me too 🎉

😌🙏

I totally agree, which is why I feel the degree qualification should be the minimum, so that we do feel more equipped and are better educated and informed when liaising with other health professionals and our patients. In other countries you have to get a doctorate before you can study naturopathy as it's a post graduate qualification. I have mixed feelings on that, but it might solve this issue. It's really unfair how hard it is to develop a career, given the amount of money spent on the education, I totally agree. I'm grateful for the knowledge and growth that came out of my studies, but I feel the same- if I could do it over, I would have done something else. It's been great to connect with you, thank you so much for your in-depth insights! I wish you all the best 🙏🥰

@@CassandraEvergreen thank you for your reply! I'm not sure the doctorate was the answer for me. It was offered just as I was leaving and I had no intentions of spending another 10 thousand and two years of my life completing it. I had a look at the content and decided that it was just padding and more depth of what we had already done. I'm glad I didn't do it because of the way that naturopathy is quite blacklisted with the government and doesn't have a great reputation. In my opinion this has more to do with the big pharma agenda than anything else. Now we have Naturopathy integrating with this very monster. Definitely not the art I set out to practise. It annoys me that I am ineligible for most health care work with my advanced diploma, especially as a true health advocate I have avoided certain medical procedures. We have much to offer and underestimate the value of it. Adhering to nature's laws is a common sense that society is trained to reject.

Great information

You're welcome, thank you for your comment 😊

me tooooo

Thanks for sharing Sarah, I wish you all the best for the future ☺️

There is lots of evidence for homeopathy.

Less? There is ZERO evidence for it

​@@Ane127lots that its nonsense. Lol

I'm so glad Lillymae ☺️ That's very true, I feel like we have to go through everything with a fine toothed comb! I hope you find the right course for you 🙏

Thank you 😊❤️

You could say the same about philosophy 🤷‍♀️ some people just want to dedicate their life to it and those are the ones who might succeed. Thanks for the comment!

I'm so glad it was helpful to you, thank you for letting me know, good luck with your studies ☺️🙏

Absolutely agree. There is a lot to improve upon. Thank you for commenting.

There are so many good NDs fighting hard for these rights!

This is exactly why we are fighting for registration

This is such perfection. So well said! Thank you for taking the time to write such a comment! This gives me such closure honestly, because I (still) feel drawn to/ have a place in my heart for complementary medicine, but when studying it, felt the full weight of the current status and space it finds itself in. Your comment made me feel like I can now fully understand my feelings on the matter. Thank you 🙏

Where do u live. Here In Los Angeles it thrives

@@cbkhair Australia

​@@CassandraEvergreenstudy Dr biswaroop Chowdhury

Thank you for the comment! As I've grown and developed my opinions of the world, I've found my dreams have changed, so I'm content not going back and am simply grateful for the experience. Thank you also, good luck with your endeavours 🙂

No problem! Thank you for supporting my small channel ❤️ Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions I can help with 🙂

Hi Hessa, thank you for sharing 😊 I feel that sharing my experience and opinion shouldn't discourage those who are truly passionate and know within their heart that this is the path they want to pursue. I believe wholeheartedly that there is a place for naturopathy and I still see naturopaths myself for my own health. I believe however, that we should be objective and transparent about what the journey is like right now so that we can continue to increase the standards to a level of scrutiny it can withstand. Until that happens, my years of study have fortunately helped me to discern between those that are trustworthy and those that aren't. I hope one day the standards are such that anyone that calls themselves a naturopath is someone whose knowledge you can trust to a certain standard, so that the risk around this industry doesn't keep people from seeking it out. I'm so glad natural medicine has been of benefit to you, it's so valuable. Take care ❤️

Thank you for sharing, I appreciate it ☺️

Lots of evidence for homeopathy, naturopathy, etc.

@@Ane127 If there was it wouldn't be "homeopathy, naturopathy, etc" it would be a part of "modern medicine".

It is crazy hey, and so much marketing goes into getting people to enrol in these degrees by saying you can "gain a rewarding career in naturopathy" but it's just not realistic for most. And yes, it is really expensive to see a naturopath! I think I talk more about that in my video on 'the 5 worst things about studying naturopathy', because I think that's a result of the negative feedback loop that keeps naturopathy out of mainstream society, amongst many other larger factors. The good thing about nutrition as you say, is at least you have to have some sort of qualification, so the general public is still protected on some level! Thank you for commenting 😊

Thank you for watching 😊

Thank you for sharing Julian. I'm sorry you had so many negative experiences. I wish you all the luck in future and hope you find a fully qualified naturopath that has genuine respect for you and their practice. 🙏

@@CassandraEvergreen Thank you Cassandra for ou kind reply. We appreciate our encouragement that we find a fully qualified Naturopath that understands our requirements and will not ridicule our lifestyle choices. We are aware that it's not easy to find medical practitioners who favour our lifestle choices unless it concerns them. We make the choices and eventually we shall find the healthcare practitioners that are not anti-wellness when it comes to our wellbeing.

Naturopaths are not doctors at all.

I agree. Unfortunately lower class people like myself, or people who don't have family members who went to university before them, or teachers that guide them through the process, etc.- are left to figure it out ourselves and are bound to make mistakes that set us back.

@@CassandraEvergreen guess so.. But it really might help to keep professional career counsellors and also professionals from your target profession, at close hand, just to understand what it all entails

Thanks for commenting. The way I see it is that It's definitely not black and white on either side and there's corruption and ulterior motives on both sides. People should be taught critical thinking in primary school and onwards so that everyone has the skills to discern between what is likely to be genuine and safe and what isn't. At the end of the day, I can critically analyse a scientific paper- who funded it, does their conclusion match their findings, how did they conduct that study and does that sound logical? And so on. So if there's science behind it, there's data I can critically analyse. If there's no data it's harder to evaluate. It's definitely harder to get funds for scientific research into naturopathy and other natural medicines, so yes, there is a deficit and disadvantage built into the scientific industry towards natural medicine. A lot of people are quick to jump to black and white conclusions though, such as that naturopathy must be superior because it's disadvantaged, and this fits a narrative around suppression. That may be true (that naturopathy is suppressed) but the reality is that some naturopathy treatments are more effective than allopathic treatments, and some allopathic treatments are more effective than naturopathic ones. Both are valuable. *Most* science isn't entirely conclusive, and that's the nature of the scientific method. If you're wary about listening to science because you feel there isn't enough information, you should be even more concerned with naturopathy because there's even less information. My point is that we need to individually critically analyse the information that is available. (And most people don't even know what that means or how to do it which is why we have so many dangerous conspiracies consuming people's identities). Treatments that have been studied have more information and thus more data to critically analyse. The push should be to make conducting studies on natural medicine easier, and then to look at those findings objectively. People who don't know how to critically analyse something are more likely to ignore this objective data if it doesn't align with their beliefs though- so really the issue really is lack of critical analysis. People need to learn to critically analyse, and adopt new findings, even if they negate currently held beliefs.

Totally agree about "evidenced based science" It is a comment that big pharma uses to discredit natural medicine all the time. They will have you believe that naturopathic medicine has no credible science based studies. Not true ! Probably the reason that natural medicine has now become " integrated medicine " Totally sold out to big pharma. $$$ What is becoming pandemic in this country is government indoctrinated "science" The quality of this science is now totally corrupted as evidenced by the roll out of poisons compulsory or not. Worse still is that it is becoming more difficult to get work in any health field unless you belong to a credible association eg APHRA of course. This includes mental health fields such as psychology and psychotherapy.

The germ theory hoax, nice to see someone else knows about this

Thank you for saying 🙂 I've done a lot of study since! But I've almost finished my degree in sociology and anthropology now. Took me a while to figure out my path but I got there!

Thank you! And thank you for the questions 🥰 Yes I did, I studied at Endeavour :) And I chose to go into horticulture/ tissue culture after leaving my naturopathy degree. Hope that helps!

@@CassandraEvergreen wow that makes a lot of sense why your opinions of it are so low. I’ve heard alot of negative things about endeavour sadly!

@@roxsta1113 hey, thanks for commenting ☺️ When I studied at Endeavour it was before the pandemic and before the course structure changed and it was actually a wonderful place to study at. The lecturers were extremely knowledgeable and had excellent teaching skills. I couldn't say anything negative about my experience in that area. Endeavour is also the college with the highest standards for compulsory units in the science subjects, which I deem integral for a qualified naturopath. It really worries me that other colleges don't stress this side of things. I have heard that around the pandemic things have unfortunately changed, but the negative feedback around this came after I left so the reasons I left are due to the ones I talk about in the video. I'd encourage everyone to do their own research before deciding on a college 🙂 xx

​​@@CassandraEvergreenhow much did it cost you to run a degree in Naturopathic medicine? I have Entrepreneurship degree and about to enroll on Naturopathic medicine degree because I was told that I am destined to be a Naturopathy. I seriously need to take a degree in Naturopathic medicine

Hi Vince,are u from Perth,did u enrol?

Critical thinking is imperative when looking at any claims about any subject but it's especially important for health related topics. I understand how frustrating it can be to have someone not take a critical thinking approach. Unfortunately I don't have any resources as I'm currently just as stumped as you about how to talk to my own loved ones who are believing Facebook posts and internalizing new beliefs based on very questionable sources. I'm sorry you're going through this too. One idea I've had is to somehow recommend them something relevant to critical thinking. Perhaps 'The Social Dilemma' on Netflix or some other documentary that's designed to make people think about whether the information they consume/believe is indeed trustworthy. Good luck with everything, and thank you for reaching out. I hope your partner's Mum comes around and we all learn to put critical thinking at the forefront in a world where information is becoming increasingly convoluted.

@@CassandraEvergreen thanks! I’ll give that a look. It goes to show that critical thinking is a learned skill that should be taught more.

@@TSUYOMIchan Absolutely.

You don't qualify for HECS unless you're studying at a government university. No government universities in Australia offer Natural Health related degrees. But there is an alternative scheme called HELP-debt. However, you do not qualify for HELP debt unless you are studying full time. And full time at The Endeavour a College of Natural Health (and potentially other private universities) is not always 4 subjects per semester; it may be 5 or 6 depending on the weight of each subject. At government universities, to qualify for HECS you also need to be full time, but unless I am mistaken, this will be a minimum of 4 subjects per semester. Hope this helps 🙂

@@CassandraEvergreen that’s super interesting. I’m looking at Torrens University and they did not tell me this today. I want to do two subjects and the guy sent me a link to apply for either the HECS or HELP. Not once did he mention you need to study full time to get it. If that’s the case this changes everything

@@rachelkate1514 I'm re-reading what I wrote and I'm so sorry, I got this all wrong. I was in a rush and stressed yesterday when I wrote this. I was getting government payments mixed up with debts. Let me start again. You qualify for HECS (at gov uni's) and HELP-debt (at private uni's) no matter your study load! There's a scheme at gov uni's called Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) which is granted to every domestic student. It's where the gov pays about half of your fees for every subject. This isn't usually offered at private uni's, which increases fees and therefore the amount of debt you go into (which is important if you're using HECS or HELP because there is a limit to how much you can borrow). If you plan on getting government student payments, you don't qualify for them unless you are studying full time. This, is the issue I had and the one I spoke about it the video; I thought I was studying full time at 4 subjects per semester, and I was getting government payments- but the gov called me up to tell me I wasn't full time and that I have to pay them back for the entire previous year. I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen to anyone else. But if you aren't relying on gov payments you don't need to worry about what your study load is 😊 My brain totally failed me yesterday, I'm so sorry!

@@CassandraEvergreen thanks so much for clarifying.I totally understand now. No I'm not getting government payments so I'm ok there but good to keep a watchful eye on how much the HELP debt will be...thanks again.Hopefully today wasn't so stressful for you.

I think so too, and to create a product as well as a robust marketing strategy takes money to begin with and most people don't have access to those resources unfortunately. Thank you for your comment 😊

Pros and cons. Pros are that the term naturopath would actually be synonymous with a minimum level of education, it would improve public safety and trust and therefore potentially facilitate its integration into conventional medicine, and also stimulate research and development in the field, leading to improvements in evidence based medicine relevant to naturopathy. Sure there'll likely be more red tape, fees and bureaucracy but it's a balancing act. Capitalism 🤷‍♀️

Yeah naturopaths definitely aren't doctors! They do have some value though. Thanks for another comment 😊

This is the absolute ideal I agree! Doctors should be healers. I think in some countries like the UK you may need to do an undergrad degree in medicine before you can study naturopathy but I'm not certain- similar (but more limiting) concept.

I don't make that assumption but thanks for sharing, good luck to you too!

Wow that is bizarre! I wonder what the reasoning behind it is. Thanks for sharing and sorry that that's the situation in NZ 😒

​@CassandraEvergreen Yeah, that's why I decided to go into Physiology instead. Dietetics requires a Masters (so 5 years total) here but Clinical Physiology just takes 4 years (a 3 year bachelor & a 1 year post grad diploma).