This is the transcript for the video Fast track to 2nd year UTS Business School
Fiona Davidson: Welcome to our session, Fast Track to Second Year UTS Business School. My name is Fiona Davidson, and I will be your host today. Our intention through our UTS Insearch webinars is to help illustrate the different ways into UTS. This session’s specifically for UTS Business School. Our agenda today, we will discuss who is UTS Insearch and the key role the college plays in preparing students for UTS and getting those fast track pathways through. You’ll meet our business program manager and also hear from the graduate themselves, so it’s always good to hear student voice. We’ll go through how to apply, and we’ll have a live Q and A session at the end. So, please use the Q and A function at the bottom of the screen to type in your questions.
So, starting today, we have Susan Sherringham. She is our Program Manager for UTS Foundation Studies. Susan has over 20 years’ experience in education across the secondary, vocational and tertiary education sectors. She leads a curriculum team that designs the enhancement of development of 21st century skills for those preparing for university. Welcome, Sue.
Susan Sherringham: Thank you, Fiona, and welcome to you all. I’ll be talking to you today about UTS Insearch, who we are, and what we do, and how we help you get to UTS. So, UTS Insearch is your pathway to UTS. It has a proven track record of helping students to reset their future. We offer a uniquely supportive environment, and it’s one where you can build your confidence as you begin your journey to university and to develop those independent skills that you need to thrive at UTS and also in your future careers.
It’s been a tough year. We’ve all felt it. It’s been really, really challenging, and COVID-19 has left everyone really feeling pretty disrupted. Our lives have really been turned upside down, and it’s left many of us feeling disconnected, disappointed, unsure about our futures and really, it’s like our life is in limbo. So, I can imagine also that many of you have concerns about this challenging year and where this leaves you in regard to your journey to university and whether or not those career choices you had at the beginning of your HSC are still within your reach.
Well, I would say that there’s no reason not to follow your dreams. I think you should reach out and go for it for that career that you wanted and because of these uncertain times, more than ever, quality education is really, really important because it represents a really good start and preparation both for university but also for the challenging times we’re facing. A good quality education opens up opportunities to deal with what lies ahead. I believe that you can say that you can start at UTS Insearch with a renewed sense of optimism because we will help you reset for 2021 and follow your dream.
Students who start their UTS journey at UTS Insearch enjoy a first year that combines caring, personal and differentiated academic support with a real world practical approach to learning, something UTS is known for. So, at UTS Insearch, you will experience a supportive learning environment where your teachers can get to know you, where you can get to know them, and where you can get individual guidance and feedback and sharing that journey with your classmates. In addition to face-to-face classes, there’s also learning support, programs that can help you both one-on-one in workshops and also through our Study Success Advisors. We have a student-centred approach to learning, and what do I mean by that? Well, essentially, the focus is on you, helping you become independent in your learning, developing skills and attitudes to become lifelong learners, which is so important in an ever changing world. This independence and the skills and attitudes that you develop will really stand you in good stead for your university experience and on into professional life.
Courses here are designed in collaboration with UTS, which means we’re delivering the same educational outcomes as first year at UTS. When you successfully complete a UTS Insearch diploma, you’ll receive a guaranteed entry to the corresponding UTS undergraduate degree. I’m sure you still have questions about studying with us in semester three including, will classes be face-to-face? We don’t expect to resume face to face classes until 2021. However, while things are uncertain, we will continue with the remote learning model that we successfully implemented at the beginning of the year.
I’d like to share with you a little bit about that remote learning approach and the sort of experience that you might have while you’re studying with us and how we will help you reach your goals. Unlike online learning, which is usually self-directed with little to no support or interaction with others, the remote learning classes at UTS Insearch are taught in real-time, learning with your fellow classmates, interacting collaborating, and receiving immediate and personalized feedback. It’s just like a classroom. It just happens to be through an online video platform. Like face-to-face classes at UTS Insearch, class sizes are limited, and we have small groups of up to 20 to ensure you get that personal attention. So, stay tuned learn more about the great diplomas we have on offer, and above all, stay safe, stay positive, and come and reset your studies with UTS Insearch. We’ve got your best interests at heart.
Fiona Davidson: Thank you, Sue, and thank you for your time today. We now have Vinh Tran, our Program Manager of Business to provide an overview of the Diploma of Business to help illustrate what students can expect studying this program. Vinh has over 10 years of experience in tertiary education. He works closely with UTS Business School for curriculum design and is a specialist in bringing together technology and innovative approaches to education, which has been rather useful over the last several months, so welcome, Vinh.
Vinh Tran: Thank you, Fiona. Hello everyone. My name is Vinh Tran, and I look after the Diploma of Business at UTS Insearch. It’s my privilege to be able to tell you some information about our program and how it can help you to go from your high school into the Bachelor of Business at UTS in the second year. So, Diploma of Business will help you to apply the fundamentals of business to real world situations through collaborative projects, critical thinking, and problem solving opportunities. We work very closely with our colleagues at the UTS Business School, making sure that we create a seamless transition from our diploma into the degree at UTS.
In our program, you have the opportunity to specialize within the Bachelor of Business with the majors of your choice, enabling you to deepen your understanding of a specific area of business. So, we offer a pathway into the UTS bachelor degrees in the business school. Once you complete your high school, you can study with us either in the eight-month program, 12 months program, or the 16 months program. Regardless of which program you’re doing, once you have completed the program successfully, you’ll be guaranteed a place in the Bachelor of Business in the second year. So, you won’t have to repeat the first year at UTS when you get there.
So, Diploma of Business has been designed to prepare you for success at the UTS Business School and more importantly, in your business career in the future after that. Throughout our program, you will learn not only the business knowledge skills, the knowledge concepts but also the skills required to succeed in a professional career later on. So, you will learn all the business concepts about accounting, economics, finance, and marketing, but more importantly, you learn the skills that employers look for in a graduates, skills like problem solving skill, critical thinking skill, creativity, teamwork skills. So, we will build those skills into your subjects while you’re studying with us. You can do that, like I mentioned earlier, over eight months period or 12 months period.
When you study business with us, you will study the same subjects as a first year UTS student. We have eight core subjects in the Diploma of Business, and seven of them are exactly the same as the subject in a first year UTS specialty grade. Now, what that means is that by the time you come to UTS in the second year, you would gain all the knowledge, all the skills that a UTS first year student would have got already. That’s why you won’t repeat the first year at UTS. We’re very proud of the way we teach at UTS Insearch because we have a student-centred culture at UTS Insearch. What that means is before we think of how we teach or how we design assessment, we ask ourselves, what would be like a student experiencing this? Is it easy to understand? Is it easy to do this assignment in the most logical way? Is it authentic assessment? Does this really help you with your future career? We work backwards from there.
So, you see a lot of our classes are interactive, and when you study with us, we have an expectation that you will be actively participate in a classroom, share your ideas, arguing, debating, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes. So, you won’t be sitting in a classroom just listening to someone talking at you. I mentioned earlier, you learn business concepts and skills for the real world.
When you study at UTS Insearch, you will have access to world class facilities at UTS. So, you have access to UTS buildings, you have access to UTS Central, the brand new building that has UTS library. With the library, you also have access to a vast database of online business journals and articles, so you get used to the habit of getting up to date with business news and how to look for the right data, analyse data. All of those were really useful when you come to work in a business environment. You can start preparing for all those skills while you’re with us. We actually build those activities in our subjects, in our curriculum to give you time, to give you activities, to actually do those things while you’re with us. So, when you come to UTS, you wouldn’t have to take the time so that … How do we find this news article? All of that will be taken care of while you’re studying with us.
Once you successfully complete your program with us, you will get into the second year at the Bachelor of Business at UTS. There, you can decide what major you want to do. So, you can do accounting, business law, economics, finance, human resource management. You can even do IT major, international business, management, marketing, advertising, and marketing communication. Now, some of you might have a very clear idea of what you want to do in a business world. You might have your eyes dead set on being an accountant, financial planner, a PR person or a lawyer, or maybe you’re not sure what to do at this point, which is perfectly normal. That’s why in the Diploma of Business or first year at UTS, you study a subject in each of the major discipline area. So, you study a subject in accounting, one in economics. One’s in finance, management, and marketing.
So, the idea is once you have a taste of all the disciplines and you have a reflection, which one do I like best? Which one I enjoy the most? Which one I want to know more? Which one I want to do for the rest of my life? Then, you can decide what major you want to do. Even if right now, “I want to be a finance person. What do I need to know about economics or about management?” Well, to function in a business environment is so vital that you need to know how different pieces of business work together, so it would be really useful. Even if you just do finance, you understand a bit marketing, how to do marketing. It has impacts in finance. So, all will be useful. If you think of having a start up after you finish Bachelor of Business, then all of these knowledge and skills will come into handy when you set up your business because you need to know a bit of everything and how your business would work.
So, like I mentioned earlier, you can study our program over the standard duration, 12 months, or accelerated, eight months. Now, regardless of which program you do, you have to complete eight subjects. The difference is you complete eight subject over three semesters in the standard or two semesters in accelerated. So, in standard program, you study three subjects in the first semester, three in the second semester, and two in the last semester, whereas in accelerated, you’re studying four subjects per semester.
What that means is if you choose the accelerated, then you will be aware that there’ll be more effort and time to be allocated and dedicated for your study. It’s quite a full load if you do accelerated, but that allows you to go to UTS more quickly if you start with the right intake. Again, you can see that there’s a subject in every major discipline in a business environment. So, when you complete the diploma, you can decide what major you want to do.
We realize it’s a major leap going from high school environment into a university environment, and therefore, UTS Insearch is right in the middle. We operate and treat our students more like a university than a high school but like a high school more than university. What that means is gradually, we realize that you start from high school environment. We provide a lot of support structure. Along the way, but as you complete the program with us, you become independent learners, which is what UTS expect all of their students to do. The difference is you have a bit of time with us to have those skills built up over time, not just to expect of you to have in the first day at university. That’s one of the positive feedback we got from our Insearch students have gone to UTS, that thanks to the eight months or 12 months with us, they have a time to build the skills, build the confidence to get used to the way universities work with more, support. So, when they get to UTS, they find themselves in a much better position to transition into university and have a high chance of success.
So, that was a quick overview of the Diploma of Business and how we support you to succeed to get to UTS and also succeed in UTS Bachelor of Business and or your business future career. So, stay on for our live Q and A, and I’ll be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Fiona Davidson: Thank you, Vinh, for your overview. It was interesting hearing about the active learning and building those real world business skills and also interesting hearing about the value of making mistakes, which means that you’ve created a very safe learning environment for students to feel comfortable doing that. Just as a reminder to our attendees of the session, as Vinh was talking about those intensive, the accelerated program, if you are interested in doing that, we have three intakes a year. We’ve got one coming up in four weeks’ time on the 6th of October, and that will have you ready for UTS midyear intake next year. The bachelor degrees have a midyear intake.
So, again, if you have any questions on this or more, Vinh will be at the live Q and A at the end of the session along with Admissions and Student Centre for your question, so do have those questions ready. Now, for our next session, to help explain the student experience of studying a Business Diploma, we’re very lucky that we have a UTS Insearch graduate coming along to talk to us today. So, we have Robert. Thank you, Robert, for joining us. Could you share a little bit about yourself, what you studied at UTS Insearch, and what you study now?
Robert Henby: At UTS Insearch, I started out doing a Diploma of Engineering. However, I quickly moved on to doing a Diploma of Business instead. At UTS, I’m currently doing a Bachelor’s of Business, majoring in marketing and management.
Fiona Davidson: Oh, fantastic. So, why did you decide to study at UTS Insearch?
Robert Henby: Well, the reason I decided to study at UTS Insearch is before, in high school, I didn’t really plan on going to university. I just planned to get a trade, join the workforce. However, going to a UTS Open Day with some of my friends from high school, they came across the UTS Insearch booth, and they found out all about it. I was somewhere else, getting some free food.
Fiona Davidson: Getting those donuts?
Robert Henby: Yes. They have amazing donuts, but they came over and told us all about this UTS Insearch and how it doesn’t matter about the ATARs, just your marks for the HSC, which I’ve thought was wonderful. Actually, it was the first time I thought university’s actually a possibility.
Fiona Davidson: Oh, fantastic, bit of a life changing moment. Thank God for your friends.
Robert Henby: Yeah. Thank goodness for them.
Fiona Davidson: Yeah. So, that’s interesting that you started off in engineering, but then, you changed your mind to doing the Diploma of Business. Why the change?
Robert Henby: When I was doing engineering, I just eventually just came to realize it wasn’t really for me. The work that was required, it just wasn’t something I wanted to do, so I stopped performing as good as I should be. So, what ended up happening is I went to the Study Success Advisors. I told them, “Hey, I’m not really feeling this course anymore. Is there anything else I can do because I still wanted to study?” They said, “Yes, you can change your course,” everything like that. They gave me all the information I needed, and then they helped me make the choice to change to business which, along with knowledge from some of my friends, I decided was better off for me and I enjoy doing much more. When I started, I performed much better.
Fiona Davidson: Fantastic. So, it was quite an easy transition for you to change directions.
Robert Henby: Yeah. Honestly, the change of direction, it’s only really possible through the Study Success Advisors. Without that, I wouldn’t have that confidence to actually fully change. I would’ve still be nervous about it.
Fiona Davidson: Oh, good. Glad to hear that you had great support through the student service team, as well as your friends advising you again. Sounds like you’ve got a great network there. What were some of your favourite practical experiences during studying the Diploma of Business?
Robert Henby: I would have to say one of my favourites was in management. In management, we had this assignment that was a group assignment. The brief for it was there was a shop across the street. It’s closing down. We are buying that space, and we’re going to make a gym. So, we have to come up with this whole concept for a gym, like why it’s unique, all this type of stuff. It was very enjoyable to actually work on that. It felt very real, like we were actually doing it. I feel like me and the other group members, we came up with a quite comprehensive plan for what would hopefully be a successful gym.
Fiona Davidson: Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s great. So, it’s sort of real life skills that you felt, practical skills that you can take into the workforce with you after.
Robert Henby: Exactly.
Fiona Davidson: Overall, how do you feel UTS Insearch prepared you for life at UTS?
Robert Henby: The way it prepared me is by helping me transition from high school into university. Again, from using the teacher’s support, having that more one-on-one personal touch, it really helps the transition because in normal university, you have classes where you’re one in 40 students, and the lecture itself is like 400 students, so you don’t really get that much in universities, but at UTS, you really did get that, and it helped transition into that higher learning.
Fiona Davidson: Oh, that’s fantastic that it worked for you as a great stepping stone. Robert, that’s great. Thank you. Thank you so much for staying in touch and sharing your stories. So, you’ve got your final semester. I think you were telling me before.
Robert Henby: Yes, I have my final semester.
Fiona Davidson: So, how are you feeling?
Robert Henby: Quite excited.
Fiona Davidson: Yep.
Robert Henby: After this, I should be able to just go straight into the workforce quickly.
Fiona Davidson: Yes. Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, we wish you all the best and hope you get to take some of those wonderful real world skills that you’ve acquired at Insearch and at UTS, and wish you all the very best.
Robert Henby: Thank you.
Fiona Davidson: Finally, Aline, our very experienced Partner Manager from our Student Recruitment Team is here to talk to us about what’s next, how to apply, and what are the costs involved. Hello, Aline.
Aline Chiron: Hi, Fiona. How are you?
Fiona Davidson: Good. Good, good. Thanks for joining us.
Aline Chiron: Thank you for having me.
Fiona Davidson: I’ll leave all the nuts and bolts over to you.
Aline Chiron: Well, as Vinh has said, I’m just going to talk you through about the entry requirements. I’m sure that everybody’s thinking about that and wanting to know, how do I get into UTS Insearch, how to apply, the steps, the fees, and the intake dates. So, the entry requirements. If you’re doing your HSC this year or if you have already done it, everybody’s thinking about the ATAR, right? That’s something that everybody keeps in mind, and you can actually become very stressful because you need this ATAR to be able to go to your course of choice at UTS.
Insearch, UTS Insearch is a bit different in that sense that we do not look at the ATAR, but we assess based on your HSC results. So, we don’t believe the ATAR is defining you. We think that you’re more than an ATAR, so that’s why we look at your HS average. The way we do it is that we take your four non-VET subjects including English. We make the average, and then we can see if you can join the accelerated diploma or the standard diploma. So, I will tell you more about the different diplomas that we have in a minute, but yeah, just remember, we do not look at the ATAR. We only look at the HSC average. We take the four non-VET subjects including English, and then we’ve got the average, all right? So, the entry requirements, to go into the standard diploma, you we need 67% in your HSC. Standard diploma is 12 months program. We also have the accelerated diploma, which is eight months. For that one, we are looking at 75% percentage rate in your HSC, okay? So, 67 for the standard one and 75% for the accelerated one.
Just a quick recap, because you’ve already heard about that before, all of the reasons why it’s really awesome for you to consider UTS Insearch and why you should be doing a diploma at UTS Insearch, so as mentioned, we have the guaranteed entry into UTS. You don’t need to reapply. You don’t need to compete with other students. If you successfully complete your diploma with us, then your place is guaranteed at UTS. We have a really good support, personalized support, small class sizes, one-on-one tutorial workshop sessions that is happening every week as well, Study Success Advisors that are here to help you and guide you throughout anything. Any issues that you have, they will be able to give you their expertise advice on that. So, we make sure that we prepare you to gain confidence and be able to succeed at university especially at UTS.
So, our goal is to make sure that not only you got the diploma and then you pass. We want you to thrive once you go to UTS, so it’s all about building this confidence that you need once you start at university. We’re also experts in transitional education. We’ve been doing that for years, so we know exactly what the student needs to be able to progress to university. So, we have the teachers that are expert and again, the Study Success Advisors to make sure that you do well once you go to university.
Now, you’re worried about the fees. So, for 2020, a diploma program, whether it’s accelerated or standard, it’s $32,000 this year, and in 2021, it’s going to be $33,000. So, you might wonder why it’s more expensive than starting first year at university. There are different reasons why. First of all, the ratio between teachers and students is not the same, so obviously, it increases the cost a little bit more, but we also have to remember that we are non-government funded, so we do not receive money from the government, hence, why the fees are a bit more expensive.
We are also a non-for-profit organization, meaning that all of the money that we receive, we reinvest it into the education, so into the facilities, into the teachers, into the whole Insearch organization to make your experience even better. Also, one thing that we need to mention is that if you are Australians or citizen or PR humanitarian student, you can get the fee help as well and get some help from the government. So, I invite you to have a look online. It’s actually pretty well explained.
Now, the intake. So, we’ve got three intakes every year happening. The very next one is actually happening in October, so the 6th of October is our next intake. If among you, there are students that actually have done already the HSC last year or a few years ago, that might be your opportunity to actually not wait too long. You can start in October, and there are lots of courses that have a midyear intake at UTS. So, if you are interested into architecture, business, engineering, IT, and also science, you could start in October and transfer to the first or the second year at UTS in July. So, you will be able to fast track. If you are considering this sort of option, then that’s very important for you to know that. Otherwise, if you’re doing your HSC this year, we will have an intake in February, the 22nd of February next year or another one on the 15th of June, which is our semester two, or another semester three next year on the 27th of September, so different sort of options for you.
How do you apply? So, you basically … Very easy. You just go to our websites. There is an application form that you will need to fill out. Just enter all of the fields, and within two days, then you get an answer from us, and hopefully, you’re successful. If you are an international student, whether you are offshore or on shore doing your HSC here, you will need the help of an education agent. We have a list on our website of all of our authorized education agents that will be able to guide you through the process and also help you with the visa requirements and all of those little things that you need to know, and you need experts to help you with.
I’m also inviting you to have a look at our website. There is a list of information as well regarding the academic requirements for your country if you’re not in Australia and also the English requirements for the foundation program that is offered to international students or also our diploma program. There is the list of also of scholarships that are available depending on your country, and we have also listed all of the intakes date. So, please have a look at our website. There is a comprehensive range of information over there. Otherwise, speak to your education agent. Thank you very much, everyone. Good luck.
Fiona Davidson: Thank you, Aline. Thank you for going through the application process and the entry requirements with us. We are about to start our live Q and A component of this webinar, so please fill in your questions in the Q and A function at the bottom of the screen, not the chat but the Q and A. We have our program manager to answer your questions. We also have representatives from Student Center Admissions and the recruitment team. So, they will be with us shortly, and we’ll get to it. Thank you.