Jan 30, 2019

Monday, 14th January was a brand new start for the new students starting their studies in Australia at New Horizons Australia Institute of Technology. New Horizons Australia welcomed groups of new students on each of the three campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The students will be commencing their studies towards the BSB51415 – Diploma of Project Management and ICT50115 – Diploma of Information Technology.

With each intake, New Horizons Australia organises an orientation day for students so as to give them the opportunity to get to know each other, and their campus better. In this article, we will go behind the scenes of the first Orientation Day of 2019.

Sydney Campus

The student Officers at the Sydney Campus welcomed 5 new Brazilian and Nepalese students on Monday. These students will be starting in the ICT50115 – Diploma of Information Technology course. As is generally the case with each Orientation Day, the student support officers first take the time to speak to each of the students individually and give them their welcome pack, which also includes their very own New Horizons Koala. Following this warm welcome, the students meet their future classmates and get the chance to get to know each other and discuss life in Australia. Students are generally keen to learn more about the lifestyle of the country and city they are studying in. They are interested in the culture, the food, and any tips on what to see and do and where to go. They are also eager to look for any part-time job opportunities for them. This cohort will be looked after by Fiona, Student Support Officer in Sydney who has “really enjoyed meeting this energetic group”.

Melbourne Campus

Moving on to Melbourne, here we spoke to Trushita, who joined the team in Melbourne as a Student Support Officer towards the end of 2018. For her, this has been the first ever Orientation Day. Together with the rest of the team, she welcomed 6 new students to the Melbourne Campus. Melbourne has most diverse group of students to date, with students from The Netherlands, Italy, India, Brazil and Nepal! These students will be starting in the ICT50115 – Diploma of Information Technology and the BSB51415 – Diploma of Project Management course. Here is how she described the orientation day: “Being my first Orientation at New Horizons, I was pretty excited to welcome students and address them with all the information to be shared. It was really good to get to know them one-on-one in the interview sessions. Together we had the opportunity to discuss a few important things, like places to visit in Melbourne, about public transport, attendance, student discounts, how we can help them to generate USI’s etc. I was happy that students felt free to approach me and share their thoughts and doubts with me! Overall, it was a pretty good day and the students were happy to receive Koalas.”

Brisbane Campus

The team in Brisbane welcomed 7 new students for this Orientation Day. Running a similar orientation, Jocelyn, Brisbane Student Officer started the day with a one-to-one chat with the students, getting to know them better and finding out about their backgrounds. All students expressed their excitement at the start of this new adventure and emphasised how happy they were to be studying in Brisbane. All the Brisbane students will be starting in the ICT50115 – Diploma of Information Technology course. In the case of this intake, all students were familiar with each other, which made the group dynamics much more flexible. All the students were pretty happy with the weather and, even though they had one another, they were looking forward to making new friends throughout this experience.

We would like to take the opportunity to wish all three groups the very best as they embark on this new journey.