-Can't comment on the courses but I am a member of the Melb Camera Club and can recommend it highly from several viewpoints. The club has a wide range of members with an amazing range of skills and experience. It is a fantastic place to learn about a broad range of photographic subjects, however, it will not directly help you to find work in the photographic field. I do recommend joining regardless of your skill level or knowledge, and it's very cheap to join at that. See http://www.melbournephoto.org.au/ for more info.

-I didn't know that RMIT did short courses, but that's excellent. As far as the Bachelors degree, it was pretty damn hard to get in when I did mine else where. You'll need to have a pretty impressive folio. If you did want to do a bachelors there, and weren't accepted..........Most universities have huge drop out rates after first year. You could go and do first year at another school (though, I don't know if anywhere else in Melbourne has a B/A photography course). When I did mine, there was only 3 or 4 in Australia that did B/A Photography. Most had Bachelors in fine arts, but I couldn't see myself doing ceramics and weaving and god knows what else, which would never be useful to a photographer. Also, if you did want to study somewhere else for first year, I'd check to make sure that RMIT will recognize the subjects and give you credits for them. A couple of people that studied with me, went on to RMIT, and didn't get a credit for about half of the subjects they'd completed. But they were still able to enrol as second year students, but had to make up for the non credited modules after 3rd year, and before they could get their degree. So in effect it just took them an extra 6 months to get a degree, which was worth it for them, as a degree from RMIT is certainly a fine feather in your cap when out looking for higher prestige photographic work.

RMIT is pretty widely accepted as being on of the best Photography schools in the southern Hemisphere. I think I'll be doing my MA there.