perferbly on campus at a reconised tafe or university etc, no expensive 8,0000 course promising you to be rich in a month etc. I dont want to take any short cuts

Consider taking an online course which will allow you to absorb at your own pace instead of one that takes 12-16 weeks in duration.

I don't know about Melbourne, but I remember reading an article a while ago about the top quant schools in the US. Here I found it:

http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209102204

At the start of a trading journey one can easily lose focus by being mesmerized by hype promising seminars, just a caution in the early stages. You seem to be aware of this..

Don't know any that are in Melbourne. However in Sydney, Propex Derivatives offers a training for graduates who want to be Prop Traders. They have a twice yearly intake.

They are also going to offer a paid training programme as well and from the information on their website, this will be offered sometime in 2010. The training fees for their course have probably not been determined yet. People can register their interest on the website.

Propex Derivatives are a large and very reputable Prop Trading Firm with a great management.

Thankyou so much, I will have a look at the site now :> cheers

I'm afraid, my friend, that this is an oxymoron. A college course is exactly what you do not want. If it doesn't start with fundamentals and economics the relationship to markets I'd be surprised. ...and that's a short cut to disaster in the market place. If you are a true beginner, you will certainly need to know the basics of contract specifications, that includes contract size, leverage, dollar value per point, brokerage margins, trading hours, cash vs futures, etc. And it's true this might as easily be absorbed in a classroom situation as anywhere else, but this info is also readily available from the exchanges themselves, like the CME, which offers many such educational courses online for nothing. And all those subjects can be acquired otherwise in parts and pieces by Google searches quite easily.

A general course in technical analysis whether in class or online will at least get you closer to the task at hand. And there is a library full of good general survey books on the subject, with authors that range from Edwards & MaGee, Murphy, Drummond, Gartlely, Schabacker and Schwager, or authors that focus on a few more specific trading techniques and trend signal generators like Ratchke, Connors, Noble or Lindsay. All of any of these would better focus your efforts and education than any college course on trading from within a classroom... I'd bet.

Once you've mastered what you're trading and how it trades in the auction market, you'll need to learn a software platform for trade entry / exit / and management, and how an account can keep track of your results for you. This should all be done by simulation. And most brokerage accounts offer you simulated accounts while you learn their accounting and trade platforms. In conjunction with the data stream from such a brokerage firm, Ninjatrader.com offers you a great way to view the contract you've chosen to trade, and actually simulates its trading with play money in real-time without having to buy their software at all. It's free to use from them in the simulated download version.

And with a simulator, you should be able to quickly learn how fast your simulated money can disappear without a very concise trade plan that makes use of some of your newly acquired knowledge of the technical side of market. Understand that it's a tight technical plan that is the core goal of your trading education. When and where to enter and exit trades with some consistency is the true art and skill of the challenge before you. And a college is the least likely place for you to find any credible techniques and models for such a trade plan. Unless of course you've confused the subject of economics with the subject of trading in the first place. And if so, and what you really want is the subject of economics, a college is definitely the place for you. I must assume that is not, or you wouldn't be here in this forum about trading and trading techniques. Good luck with your pursuits....