ICMS Blog

First Week Fun

icmsedu — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:08:34 +0000

Hi everyone,

Well welcome back for all the returning students and hi to all the new ones!

So the first week back at Uni is always full of introductions to heaps of different people from everywhere and also to new lecturers which I will admit is not always as fun

At the end of the first week the Student Representative Council (SRC) holds an Icebreaker for all students which just helps everyone get to know each other better. This term it was fabulous.

The SRC Events Committee and Bar Team at the College did an exceptional job at pulling the Icebreaker together and running it smoothly so in saying that a big congratulations is in order to Pip Montgomery who is the SRC President and to Paul Barnett who is the Bar Manager who worked that little bit harder and longer to make sure everything was ready. Well done!

So I hope everyone has a great second week at ICMS and as much fun as everyone had in the first!

Lina

My first blog!

icmsedu — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:08:56 +0000

Hello All!

It is September! Only 22 days to go for the Google Beijing office visit! How exciting it is!

Our Google Beijing trip will commence on 21st Sept 2009 and visit the office on 22nd Sept. Our team members will stay a while longer for sightseeing around Beijing (and possibly the Great Wall of China).

Keep on eye on my blog posts to see our trip updates when the time approaches.

Hope the ICMS undergraduates and lecturers enjoy their term break!

Study Guide 101: Common Sense Study Tips

icmsedu — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:26:50 +0000

Here at ICMS, the Academic Learning Centre offers help and advice to students on a range of issues, from how to write the perfect essay to overcoming nerves for presentations. A big part of the work carried out in the centre concerns preparing students for exams. Are you ready for your exams?

The 3 rules of studying

Where are your notes from class?
Are they stuffed in the bottom of your bag?

Rule number 1 – GET ORGANISED.

Make sure your notes are clear. If you are a visual learner you will respond well to different colours for different subjects, or for highlighting key points.

When you revise, do you know how much time you are going to spend on each subject?

Rule number 2 – GET ORGANISED!

Yes that’s right, it’s the same as rule number 1. Draw up a study timetable. Organise your time effectively so that you are giving enough time for each subject. Be sure to timetable breaks for food and exercise in your revision guide. Sometimes we may think we are machines and we can do everything, but in reality we aren’t – we all need time off from work, and, as important as exams are, so do you. Your productivity will increase immensely if you timetable your revision in lots of smaller time slots rather than one marathon session.

TIP – Have you tired recording your notes and listening to them when you’re out walking on the beach or running in the gym? It could help you.

Do you know what your next/first exam will be?

Is it multiple choice? Essay answers? Are you allowed to bring in a calculator?

You need to find the answers to questions like these BEFORE the exam day, because you can tailor your revision accordingly.

Rule number 3 – FOLLOW THE RULES!

We all need to get organized for everything we do, be it getting ready in the morning and making sure we catch the bus, or preparing for that all important interview. Studying for exams is no different, and the rules are the same –
1. Get organized
2. Get organized
3. Follow the rules

The End is Near

icmsedu — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:40:43 +0000

Week 9 is almost over. That means that in less than 2 weeks, our classes for this term will end. I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to finish all my exams within Week 12, so in 3 weeks, I will have officially (pending results) completed Term 6. That’s my Associate Degree done and dusted.

There are so many memories we have made during the past two years. My group of Event Girls, we have gone through so much together, with all the assignments, group projects, lectures, tutorials and practical classes. It’s sad we’re going to have to say goodbye to some of our friends in a matter of weeks, but we know that no matter what, these friends we make here at College are our lifelong friends.

One of the perks of being a student in Term 6 is we get to join in on the fun of End of Term Dinner. This occurs on Thursday of Week 13, where we celebrate the past two years with a movie made by our very own PC. Now, in order to make this movie, PC has been collecting footage over the past two years and will be editing it all into a 20-25 minute DVD for us all to watch and keep a copy after – just like a yearbook. Another part which makes up the movie is the filming part. We got into groups in order to film segments of songs which will go towards the movie. Along with four other event girls, we filmed our segment today, dancing and lip-synching to Girls Aloud’s Jump. We probably looked totally stupid to everyone who was watching us from the sand bar and smoking area, and we thought we looked stupid ourselves too. PC’s comforting words managed to calm us down and finish filming our whole segment in just under an hour. Now all we have to do is finish the rest of our assignments and hand them in, pass our exams, and we’re officially done with Year 2 of ICMS!

~Macha, student at the International College of Management Sydney

Why ICMS?

icmsedu — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:36:45 +0000

A lot of people ask me why I decided to come to ICMS, seeing as I had family in France and could have easily gone to university in Switzerland instead. The answer has always been because of the courses offered, along with the Industry Training programme, as well as the location. No one could disagree that this a great location. We have it all here in Manly, especially the views from most of the classrooms, which sometimes makes you want to be out in the surf rather than in class, but that’s a different point. ICMS offered what Switzerland could not have offered me in 2007 – a Bachelor of Business Administration in Event Management. Since 2001, I have always dreamed of becoming a Wedding Planner, thanks to the movie of the same title. Choosing ICMS for me was a career path in order to become one and hopefully one day open my own Wedding Consultancy Company in Sydney.

The Industry Training Programme was also another point of interest for me in choosing to come to ICMS, as it gave me the opportunity to work full time during my course for up to 9 months, I was going to have experience in the hospitality field before even having graduated. Another great thing about ICMS is having the ability to live less than one minute from your classrooms, which has become so valuable especially during these cold winters we get, as I don’t have to even worry about venturing into the cold and rain in order to get to my classes.

~Macha, student at the Internaitonal College of Management Sydney.

The Times they are A-Changin’ Pt. II

icmsedu — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:05:04 +0000

Yes I was a misguided fool, but it was hard. Like many others, I’d come straight from school. Straight from the life of being ordered what to do and when to do it, and if you didn’t, well, look out! I particularly remember Miss Jenkins. Miss Jenkins would put you in detention if you sneezed. Imagine what happened the day I forgot my homework and sneezed! I remember thinking how could someone so lovely be so vindictive? Yes Miss Jenkins, if you’re out there, if only you hadn’t been so beautiful, maybe I would have passed Maths. (Yes, still misguided!)

I digress, sorry. It really was a whole different kettle of fish altogether. If I didn’t know what autonomous was before O week I sure did once term had started. Here I was, a bull in a china shop, enjoying this unlimited freedom, this eternal world of possibilities without parents and no one telling me what to do (back in the UK when I was deciding on a Uni, you were considered a weak feeble pathetic excuse for a teenager if you didn’t get a map, mark a line at least 200 miles from your parents’ house, and then look for places further outside the line. Mine was about 300 miles from my home town, so…obviously not weak!).

In the back of my mind I knew I should be on top of the essays, but I could always do it tomorrow! Imagine my surprise when I found out I’d missed the deadline for my first assignment and no one had reminded me about it. (If you can remember your shock when Bob Dylan went Electric or perhaps on finding out that Milli Vanilli were lip syncing, or for the younger readers, the fact that Lady Ga Ga is a talented songwriter, then you’re getting close to my bewilderment). It’d happened to heaps of people in their first term. We all felt hard done by. How could this happen? Why wasn’t I reminded, nay, nagged to get on with it, to knuckle down and get it done?

Detention (n) – To be kept in school/prison because you have done something wrong
Vindictive (adj) – Unforgiving. Inclined to revenge
If only you hadn’t been so beautiful, maybe I would have passed Maths – 3rd Conditional used with ‘If only’ (3rd conditional formed using subject + past perfect, subject + would + have + pp)
…you hadn’t been…, I would have passed
To digress (v) – To move away or deviate from the subject
A different kettle of fish (idiom) – Totally different from something that you talked about/experienced
Autonomous (adj)– To work on your own. Independent
A bull in a china shop (Idiom) – Unpredicatble, troublemaker
Weak / Feeble (adj)- Not strong
Pathetic (adj) – Sad, useless
To be on top of things (Idiom) – To be aware/in control/dealing with something
To find out (phrasal verb) – To discover
To miss a deadline (not ‘lose a deadline’) – Collocation – ‘Deadline’ – A fixed date where something has to be finished
To go Electric – the phrase used when Bob Dylan switched from his acoustic guitar to an electric one
To lip sync (v)– To pretend to sing a song by moving your lips to the words (can also be used as a noun)
Bewilderment (n)– Shock, surprise, confusion
Heaps (n)– Lots of (informal)
To feel hard done by (idiom) – To fee you have been treated unfairly
To be nagged – To constantly be told to do something – to nag (v)
To knuckle down – To make the decision to concentrate and get your work done

And for all that it’s worth, you can read part III on our Sydney Business College blog – I’ll post this soon!

The Times they are A-Changin’ Pt. II

icmsedu — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:59:45 +0000

And for all that it’s worth, you can read part III on our Sydney Business College blog – I’ll post this soon!

More frosts than females

icmsedu — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:33:12 +0000

Like so many of the students I have the pleasure to teach, I stepped out one midsummer morning into the world of Hospitality as a teenager, attracted to the idea of working with people and equally amazed at being able to have late nights up WITH my parents’ permission (although now that I think of it, it defeats the purpose to have their permission). The permission was easy to come by, because it was at my father’s business, Boulevard North, a long-stay resort hotel on the Gold Coast where I started (http://www.boulevardnorth.com.au). My job description was a blank piece of paper that my father filled in daily with such descriptors as “menial tasks”, “pool cleaning” and – like the preoccupation of that Australian anti-hero Dale Kerrigan – “hole-digging”, but when the sun went down I was able to perform check-ins, answer the phone and interact with some of the regular guests and realised I had a bit of a flair for it. With persistence, I soon became possessive of sufficient skill and guile (and hormones) to be able to manage the order of the tasks I was designated, and I often found myself cleaning the pool at 2pm (pools can be really grubby). As a fifteen-year-old, the combination of hard physical work and social interaction was seminal, and all under the sun.
After school I took a gap year abroad in England, and then returned to study Arts at the University of Queensland. By this stage, my father had moved the business to a Victorian country House in Tenterfield with restaurant, bar and accommodation, but sadly where the pool contained more frosts than females (http://www.amyo.id.au/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=13096). Here, in this delightful town where Sir Henry Parkes planted the seeds of Nationhood as Australians know it, I grew too big for the branch and took off to the bright lights of Sydney in February 1999.

For more information on our Sydney business college visit our site!

The Business College Blues, seek some advice!

icmsedu — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:27:58 +0000

My university, if it had a Learning Centre, kept it a very tight lipped secret. One has visions of a 170 year old professor lost amongst vintage editions of Dickens and Hardy tucked up on the top floor of the tallest building, door welded firmly shut, hoping, praying no one would come up and seek help. I desperately needed help with certain things, but was told to just ‘get on with it.’

This may well have been the case 20 years ago, and could possibly still be happening. Some academics have the view that if you don’t ease into Uni life then there’s something wrong with you. I found it incredibly difficult to settle down, to come to terms with the fact that my future was my responsibility. Times have indeed changed and are constantly changing. Academic Language and Learning advisors pride themselves on guiding people through their studies. Research papers are being produced on the effectiveness of one to one consultations as an extension to the lecture hall and on the needs of foreign and local students. What was once a closed door department is now very much seen as an essential part of tertiary Education. As more and more students enter our business college institutions from overseas there is an increasing need to offer a full range of support materials and expertise to ensure students feel valued and are able to integrate without feeling overwhelmed by different learning methods and philosophies.

As Head of Academic Learning Centre at ICMS, my door is always open. I must confess I didn’t think many Australians would come to me for help. I’m happy to say I was wrong. Hopefully those students who have come to me for help can explain to the others that you don’t need to be summoned to me like a naughty child caught dropping a chocolate wrapper on the grounds (although I’d certainly want to speak to you if you do that and see if you need help reading the signs), and that I’m not a 170 year old festering away in a stuffy office drowning in Penguin classics (they’re nicely tucked away on my Iphone – technology today!!). Come up and check out the view. No graffiti up here, no smoke stacks, just trees and the ocean, and who knows, you may just get the help you want.

To be tight lipped – To keep something to yourself.
Tucked up – In this context it means hidden away, out of sight
To weld (v) – To stick together using heat
To pride (v) yourself – To obtain pleasure and satisfaction in doing something
Tertiary (adj) – Third rank/stage
To summon (v) – To call for something/to order someone
Stuffy (adj) – No air or atmosphere
Drowning – In this context it means to sitting in the middle of lots of books
Penguin (n) – In this context it is the name of a publishing company

~ David Hurlow

A Day in the Life

icmsedu — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:27:55 +0000

On successful completion of at least ¼ of heartbreak hill on my bike and waiting to stop sweating, I put my glad rags on ready for the day ahead. My days are ruled, as most, if not all ICMS staff can identify with, by my Outlook calendar. The first thing I do is check my calendar to see who I’m seeing that day, then onto my emails to see if anyone has requested an appointment with me. My calendar just has student numbers in, rather than names for confidentiality, so I need to keep notes next to each number in case I need to prepare anything before they come in.

During the busy weeks I can expect to see an average of 6 students a day, each meeting taking at least 30 minutes, in reality 40 – 60, so from 9 – 5pm I can pretty much spend the best part of my day going from one student appointment to another, which is what it’s all about. I often forget to drink water as I’m constantly talking to students, so come 3pm I usually get a headache (nothing a muffin won’t usually fix!). Mostly you’ll find me in the office with students or preparing work for students. Failing that, I will be in faculty, discussing students’ needs or concerns, in lectures talking to students, or in my grammar class, with students! As you can see, a day in life of me revolves around you. No day is the same or boring, as I constantly get asked different ranges of challenging questions and meet different students from across the College. It keeps me on my toes and keeps me looking forward to riding up the crest of that hill in the morning. If you see me on my bike don’t offer me a lift, I don’t want one, honestly, and don’t throw things at me – you’d be surprised how much a 5 cent coin can hurt when thrown from a moving school bus! (5 cents!? Cheapskates! Try throwing a $20 note next time!)