Parent/Student Information Evenings

Speaker 1:

Okay, good evening, everyone. Welcome to this webinar on careers for creative thinkers. My name's Mark Evans, and I'm the head of the school of communication at UTS. And tonight, what we'd like to do is run through a little bit about our, our program and careers that come out of our program at UTS. And then we've invited a panel of people working in the industry and analyzing skills deficits in the industry to have a talk to us about what's required and what they are seeing as changes to the communication industries as a result of COVID and even before that. So let me just run through this presentation for you. Obviously we, we enter this conversation in a post COVID world which has changed much of, of who we are and what we do, but sorry, I just want to go back to this slide.

Speaker 1:

So it's changed the public and the private sector, and it's changed the way we communicate. We wouldn't normally be doing a webinar like this, for instance in an effort to understand careers. So as much as it is, you know, a health crisis, it's also been a bit of a crisis for global communication. There's been a lot of interest in crisis comms. There's a lot of industries working out how to pivot and change and, and get their message out. And so we've understood now that communication amongst our industries and our organizations has changed forever and the way we communicate and it's opened up some real possibilities and it's opened up a lot of new careers as well.

Speaker 1:

The team here at UTS has come up with a list of these are the kinds of things that people doing our program, go in to the kind of areas that they consider. And you can say it's a broad area, and there's been a lot of changes recently to where the impetus has been placed and where certain jobs have really taken off. And so that's what we want to have a bit of a chat about later, but you can see here the very wide and diverse group of jobs that come from very practice-based and creative jobs through to policy and communication based jobs, just taking a deep dive into three of these roles. And these are three roles that we've seen genuine interest in during, during this time to the first PR public relations professional. And you see the kind of things that they're involved in doing, and you see the kind of skills that are needed, and we're going to come back to that later those potential degrees are degrees within our programs that we offer there, their majors. And we'll talk about those a bit later as well, and you can kind of see those, those figures around how much people make in those roles are an average from junior right through to more senior roles. So we've taken an average base there. Another one is video and multimedia producer. We're seeing a lot of these, obviously everything's video now. No matter what field you're in. And so this is a really booming area and lots of our, our programs that didn't traditionally involve much video are now predominantly about that.

Speaker 1:

And then finally marketing specialists you know, but they need to be across everything these days. And one of the things we realized in our program is giving people a broader skills base and having them do a couple of majors or a lot of subjects across a lot of areas is giving them a better chance of getting a job.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So these are the majors I was talking about in the UTS program creative writing, digital and social media, journalism, which is now digital journalism media arts and production, which is really where our video and our filmmaking comes into things, public communication, which we also consider strategic communication. So it's internal and external it's advertising and PR and social and political sciences, which we've obviously seen a boom in given things that need urgent attention like climate change and migration, and a whole range of issues where policy needs to be developed. This school also has the bachelor of music and sound design for people who are interested in the Sonic. And obviously rarely does image exist without sound now. So that whole degree is, is really about sound on screen. It's not about performance. It's about producing sound to communicate messages,

Speaker 1:

UTS, you know, when we think about, well, how do you get a job? And how do you get into the industry for us? It's about working with industry closely. These are some of our partners. We could have put up multiple slides, but these are industries and companies that are walking in and out of our doors all the time. Obviously the ABC is across the road, that's convenient, but lots of these places are in lectures, they're in tutorials, they're offering interns to students, they're rolling out campaigns and they're involving students. So this is a crucial part of the UTS DNA.

Speaker 1:

Our program features lots of opportunities beyond the classroom and until this year, many of those were overseas. So you could do exchange programs overseas studies to things like the foreign correspondent study tool, which is our flagship journalism program, where students were going over to Jordan and the Philippines and to India. And for two weeks reporting live on the ground with local media groups. Now we, we are inventing new version to those, but we hope one day they'll return. But then, you know, there's things that the UTS writers anthology now and its 35th year, you know, a very, one of the most esteemed student publication that you can get your work into. There's lots of industry events meet the journalists film festivals the central news or student broadcasting site that's won awards for its student journalism lots of media opportunities. So this is something that we also promote from day one. We encourage students and, and help facilitate them to be engaged in activities beyond the classroom.

Speaker 1:

UTS has a careers department, which is a central unit. And so that's available to all students and they offer a range of services that students can access anytime during their studies. We also make sure the careers unit come over and speak to our students from, from day one at orientation, they are engaged with our students and offering them advice and information.

Speaker 1:

We have a very vibrant UTS society of communication which we're going to hear a lot about later. So I wouldn't do it a disservice by trying to cover it off here. But it's one of the most vibrant societies on campus and they do a lot of work for students around careers and engaging with industry

Speaker 1:

Our alumni. We love to claim Hugh Jackman. We just think that's gold, right. I don't know how much we consider him a communication professional, but he's awesome. So we look, we put in there but you can see a great range. You know, Brooke boney, who's doing some amazing work at channel nine. And Maya Newell who obviously is producing amazing media works. Graham Meissen as well in terms of running one of the most significant organizations in media production in Australia. So selection there just to show you where people end up. But today I want to introduce you to our, our panel of experts, of alumni, of current students people who are engaged in communication activities and communication professions and who have generously given up their time. So I'll let them introduce themselves in a minute actually, but at least, you know, who's coming up. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen. And hopefully our panelists will start popping up on the screen. They're not there, we lost Kate somewhere, but it's back. Hi, Kate. We're going to just go around the board as I'm looking at everyone. So we'll start with Alice, your you're on my left. Do you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little about, about what you do?

Speaker 3:

Sure. My name's Alice Rummery it's really nice to be here and talk about UTS comms. I think back at my time at UTS, very funnely I graduated from UTS in 2018 at the very end and started my career last year. And now I've been in the workforce for two years. So it's really nice hindsight coming back and speaking to everyone, it only feels like two months ago that I was probably on this call going to open days about UTS comes anyway. So I work as a project officer for the new South Wales government. I work in the department of planning industry and environment. But in the department, I'm in the little team called energy climate change and sustainability. So I work in policy and projects. And you might've seen recently in the news, the sustainable energy policy, that's just gotten through new South Wales parliament. So I was in the team that wrote that. So I've been able to do some amazing things with my degree and only two years out of the workforce as well. I've also worked in charity sector as an advocate for women's rights. And I've also worked in the NGO sector as an advocacy officer for the new South Wales peak body for young people. Yeah, that's me.

Speaker 1:

Right. Thanks Alice. Kate, you're next. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? I'm a bit worried about Kate's internet connection. So we'll come back to you Kate. I think it's frozen a little bit. Abby Clark. Tell us about yourself.

New Speaker:

Hi everyone. I am the UTS society of communications President for 2021. I'm also going into my third year, next year, I'm doing a double major in digital and social media and public communication. And I've also done a couple of internships outside of uni. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, brilliant. I noticed Kate's on the move. Fiona, please tell us about yourself.

Speaker 5:

Hi, my name is Fiona Anson and I am the enterprise learning lead for UTS. Now, what that means is that I work with our teams across the university and also have corporate clients to help them understand the skills that they need for their workforces for the future, and then make sure that the curriculum, that way designing at UTS matches the skills demand that those industries have so that they can up-skill retrain re skill their people to meet the changing needs of the workforce, which is massively rapid right now. So everyone is undergoing all sorts of different pivoting and changing that needs to happen. And so my job is to make sure that we're delivering the education that helps people keep pace with that.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. Thanks Fiona. As soon as Kate appears again, I'm going to throw to her while you get settled Cape Abby, I just want to come back to you. I kind of glossed over the society of communications slide. Now I know you're the incoming president, so you should be able to tell us all about it. Can you tell us some of the activities and, and how that society is important in its relationship with industry?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, sure. So we have a dedicated careers portfolio, which really works hard to make sure that we're giving opportunities to comms students that are really relevant. And it's great because we have panels dedicated to the majors and we can also run workshops with our industry partners that really extend what we learn at uni. And so for example, this year, we actually did a webinar and a bit of a workshop with art bound initiative, which specializes in getting internships for uni students in the careers and in the industries that they're interested in. And we're just, very proud of how we've managed to transform into the digital space and really deliver all of our careers opportunities online this year.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. And remind me how many people roughly are in the society.

Speaker 4:

So at the moment we have about 300 members but we actually have a Facebook group called UTSoC careers, which has 1300 members. And so that is a really great space for people to come in and post jobs that they need, you know, comms graduates or interns for. And I actually got a job through there myself, so it definitely works.

Speaker 1:

And just on that, the big orange, little orange, did I get that right. Just tell us a little bit about that program.

Speaker 4:

So that's our mentoring program and basically we match first year students up with second and third year students and it's academic support, but also social support. Especially this year was really vital in making sure that first years felt included at uni and like they were actually having a uni experience. And we actually did work very closely with the faculty of arts and social sciences to give feedback from the first years about how they were feeling in their first year. You need that fast then used in their formulation of plans for the second semester of online delivery. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. Just to reminder to everyone, you can use the Q and A box to put in any questions that you've got about anything. We'll give it a go, but preferably about communications. If you don't know, if I can come back to you now, you've done a lot of research about skills deficits across the country in multiple industries. You want to tell us a little bit about that and the kind of things you've found in your research.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, definitely. So you might've noticed in the introduction slide, I think it had my name and it also had that my title at UTS, but then also I was a business owner and entrepreneur. So my background is in the jobs and skills space. I've worked and run my own businesses in that space for over 10 years. And so my job at UTS, but also my career for the last 10 years has been to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the jobs market, in terms of the job demand and the skill demand for different industries. And, and a couple of years ago, I did a really interesting piece of work around the demand demand for specific qualifications in this area and skills in this area. So it's an area that I'm really, really familiar with. It's, it's been interesting to watch the job market change and the demand for skills change over the last decade.

Speaker 5:

And certainly over the last kind of three to four years, we've seen a massive shift in the demand for what we like to call soft skills or transferable skills over hard skills. So kind of a decade and longer ago, organizations were looking for people that could do things. So, you know, I can, I can make a widget or I can write some code or I can do that. But what we find now, organizations that are looking for people that can be really agile and have a suite of skills and the skills at the top of that list are what we call these soft or these transferable skills. So things like, and I've got a big list of them here, but things like the ability to problem, the ability to be analytical, to be able to work in teams, to be adaptable and curious, and to embrace innovation and change, and to have an opinion and look at the new ways of doing things and all of those sorts of things, which just speaks to communications.

Speaker 5:

That's what communications is all about. But in looking at the top two things in demand from industries across all jobs the top two communication skills and the ability to influence. And so that's really interesting when you look at what a communications degree gives you, they're the things that our communications degree gives you. It looking at this, this piece of research that I did a couple of years ago in looking at the industries that we're looking for, those skills, we came up with 30 different industry sectors. That way, these skills were in huge high demand. And it's everything from accounting and law to science, obviously media, but even industries like construction and architecture and real estate and manufacturing and insurance and banking and education. I mean, there's just a massive list of these industries where they're looking for people with these skills. And I think COVID has certainly put an underline under that.

Speaker 5:

As you said, Mark, you know, companies now have to communicate better than they ever did before, because they're all changing. Some of them are in damage control. Some of them are pivoting and doing new things. They need to promote new brands or new ways of doing business or new innovations that they've come up with. Poor old Quantis is, is having to communicate and try and keep people interested in the travel sector whilst having all of this, you know, problems with retrenching people and try to keep a positive spin on, on what they're doing as an organization to stay afloat. I mean, communications is all about all of those things. There's not an organization on the planet that doesn't need to be able to communicate well. And certainly in this environment and both to internal stakeholders, as well as external stakeholders. So customers, clients, and the public, but also to the people within the organization, especially organizations that are going through massive amounts of change.

Speaker 5:

And, and we've seen that at UTS haven't, we marked where the, the, you know, the need for our senior leadership to be able to communicate with, with our teams when we're going through all of this rapid change as well. Because of COVID. So I think the opportunity for, for people studying communications is absolutely massive. And if I could give one piece of advice to you as a communication student or a potential communication student is to couple of your communications education with something you're really passionate about. And there's not too many qualifications that allow you to do that, that allow you to kind of cross multiple industries or multiple sectors, or combine a passion with an actual career. You know, you, you may be really passionate about law, but, and you only have one option. And that is to be a lawyer, but if you're passionate about communications, you've got lots and lots of different options.

Speaker 5:

So if, for example, you were passionate about architecture, then you could, you could pay your communications degree with working in an architectural practice or for a big building and construction company. And you would have to do things like client communications and media about new projects and managing a brand and doing social and looking at joint marketing campaigns with clients and preparing marketing collateral. And, you know, there's a whole bunch of things PR and all sorts of things that you could do to couple that love of what you have with communications. So I think it, it, it's a, it's a really powerful area to study because it does open so many doors. And, and we're seeing that in all of the data that I see around the companies that are hiring, as I said, this is absolutely at the top of the list. I can see you nodding along to the ability to influence when Phil was talking about that. How have you seen that play out in your jobs?

Speaker 3:

I think that Fiona was completely spot on as someone that only graduated two years ago. And I had countless friends doing communications at UTS as well. And I'll just mention for all of the people thinking to study at UTS communications, it really is the atmosphere in the tutorials and in the seminars where you get to talk to people, you get to make friends, you have people with similar interests. And it really, for me built a really strong friendship group of people that I'm still friends with and all have flourishing careers in the communication space. I had friends study media arts and production that are now working for seven years. I have friends who did public communications that are working in marketing agencies. I've got myself who work in policy and advocacy. So it really is so broad what you can do with your career.

Speaker 3:

But I would agree with fear in her and saying that knowing how to influence and negotiate and how to communicate effectively and how to decision make decisions. And think creatively is really important when I was doing my interviews for my current jobs. And as you all know that the job market is quite competitive, especially in this COVID era. Those are the skills that really stood out and the people that were chosen were the people who could communicate really effectively and could influence and negotiate. And those are all skills that I learned to my degree. I also really agreed with CRN Fiona when she was talking about pairing communications with passion, I've gone down the route of working in advocacy. So I did women's advocacy for a while. I did youth advocacy and I did I'm currently doing environmental advocacy through the government and all of those things, you need communication skills. And I know my friends that studied communications at UTS, passionate about film, passionate about a variety of different things. And they're all using their communication skills to go into those careers. And I think that that's essential when, when you're need to stand out and a job is passion and skill, which you definitely learn and what I definitely learned to UTS.

Speaker 1:

Right. Thanks, Alice. Just a reminder to put any questions you've got into the Q and a box. We have one here. What type of person does a communication degree specifically require having you're the president of 300 communications students? So you can tell us what kind of, what kind of person does a communication degree require?

Speaker 4:

I think the answer is a lot of different types of people. Given that, you know, there are seven majors and they really do vary a lot. You can do a lot, like Alice was saying before, you can do a lot with a communications degree, particularly from UTS, because you do have so much choice. And then there's also a lot of flexibility in testing things out and seeing what suits you. I know that I have quite a few friends that actually switched majors when they found out that, you know, maybe they were more suited to social and political sciences, or they actually really did want to go into marketing and do public communication. And so it's a really great way to sort of test out what works and what fits for your personality and whatever you think you click with the most

Speaker 1:

Alison, anything you'd like to add to that.

Speaker 3:

I would agree with Abby. I think the only thing only kind of person you need to be in doing a communications degree at UTS is actually interested in communications. And what that means is when I actually, when I started communications at UTS, I didn't really know what communications meant. I was just really interested in social political science, which is what my major was. And if you're passionate about something, if you're passionate about film, marketing, social political science, journalism, you will be passionate about communications because the communications topics that you learn in those degrees are the foundational information and knowledge that you need to succeed in your chosen major. So communications, subjects, abroad, and most people in the communications degree do them, but then the subjects that are under your major. So for example, in social political science, we did subjects all about advocacy and writing media releases and writing policy statements and things about the economy and politics. But you wouldn't study that media arts and production.

Speaker 6:

So if you're passionate about a SEG, a major or just communicating in general, then that's the kind of person who should do communication at UTS.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, Alice, Kate, I believe you're with a sonically. So I'm going to throw it to you if you want. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? Day-To-Day

Speaker 6:

Hi, everyone. Sorry. It took me so long to get on. My name is Kate or I'm the social media producer for the West coast Eagles. We're a football club in the AFL, which is the Australian football league, not so into sport. We're probably one of the biggest football clubs in the competition and certainly the biggest in Western Australia. And my job is to manage all of our social platforms across the board clubs, I guess, Fiona, what you were talking about before, in terms of adding kind of your passion into some really concrete skills that you will learn as a common student really rings true with for me. I graduated in 2012 from a bachelor of public communications and international studies. I lived in Chile for a year. So my Spanish got pretty good. It's not so good now. But I learned so many really concrete and clear skills at UTS. I time really fun late and the beauty and flexibility over comas degrees that you can take it anywhere into any industry, as Fiona said that you wish to. And I wanted to work in sport and now I live on the West coast and I work in football, which is a bit different, but I think it just proves the flexibility that you have as a coach, as a professional.

Speaker 1:

Am I right, Kate in thinking you don't just work in football, but you're also very active in football.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. I also played football, so I'm actually in the FOW team that we have here at West post. So that's a semi-professional con contract that I have. So I guess that's a different sort of a movement. It's a different application, but communications is very important on the field and off the field. And certainly some of the stuff we do as a playing group in terms of social justice and storytelling, a lot of narrative sort of stories and how we build our brand is I guess, a really important component to what we do. And a key reason why I chose sport is because I believe it's probably one of the most influential pieces up in Australian culture and really drives a lot of social change. And that's probably what I'm really glad to be involved with as part of my profession.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It definitely does drive a lot of cultural change. I think in Australia, it's a great point. Piano COVID 19 has seen a lot of changes to a lot of industries. How have you seen particularly communication industries? I know you work with, with companies, but how have you seen communication companies pivot their operations?

Speaker 5:

I, I think you touched on the biggest one earlier Mark and that's damage control or managing the messages from companies. I mean, COVID has, you know, I don't think anyone would have imagined this world 12 months ago. And so we've had to respond really, really quickly. People have had to, I mean, some organizations have totally pivoted their businesses, which has meant that they've had to market brand new organizations, brand new businesses, brand new messages. Others have had to do damage control and try and I mean, you try to manage

Speaker 5:

Sentiment high and keep them, you know, the public fond of their organizations that the government obviously has had to embark on a very fast immediate communications campaign to make sure that the public are getting the messages that they need around COVID around what we're supposed to do when we're in lockdown, but we're not in lockdown. What's happened. I mean, you know, there's a million different things that, that the government has had to communicate to us. So there's been a whole bunch of, and I mentioned Quantas earlier as well, you know, a whole bunch of organizations that have relied absolutely relied on their communications professionals to weather this storm, whether it's positive or negative for them to go through this period, you know, communications is underpinned. Absolutely. Everybody's response to COVID.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And I know, you know, we've been having conversations with companies like AGL and others in the energy sector, and they're saying, what we need is communication professionals. We need to be able to translate what's happening within our company to a client or even another part of the company.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as you said that the example I used before is, you know, internal communications has been just as important when people's livelihoods are being threatened or their organizations are changing, or organizations are moving from one kind of service or product to another kind of service or product and managing the expectations and the, the the morale of their staff as they go through these transition periods requires, you know, very strong internal communications as well as external communications. So it's, it's, it's a massive range of options available to, to communications people that have been all put to the test under this period.

Speaker 1:

Mm Hmm. We have some specific questions around the actual program. There's one around the bachelor of creative intelligence and innovation. We call the BCII Alice, you did that degree. Do you want to tell us how it works with the communication program itself?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I mentioned that I did bachelor of creative creative intelligence and innovation and a bachelor of social political science communications. So they worked so well together. I absolutely loved degree. And what that looks like for those who don't know was you're studying your core subjects in the semester. And then in the winter and summer breaks, you do a subject in creative intelligence and innovation. And then in the last year, you add an extra year onto your degree. So you do a fourth year, which is just creative intelligence and innovation, and you're compiled with various students from other degrees. That was absolutely incredible to be a comm student and throughout the semester be learning about communications, how to communicate through technology ethics of communication social political science subjects. And then in the summer and winter schools to learn about how to think strategically, how to innovate, how to work with, in a team to solve some of the world's biggest problems.

Speaker 3:

It was absolutely fascinating and something that I completely attribute my success to is studying those degrees together. And I think that people studying communications really thrive in BCII. Most of the students in, based in my year in 2018 were communication students studying BCII and we all loved it. And it, it really just horns those skills that Fiona was talking about, creative problem, solving, creative thinking strategic thinking, and not to mention that you got to work alongside some really amazing industry partners. I got to work with Google, got to work with the city of Sydney. And all of that alongside your communications degree really just adds to the value of both the communications adds to the value of BCI and BCI adds the value of communications.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, Alice. I might just take another question here from Ashley, which is about an also pairing your communication degree with something else. And it's obviously the BCII, which is very popular, but another one that's really popular is law. So you can do a communications and law degree in any of the majors and in some areas, social and political sciences that is extremely popular. Journalism law is extremely popular. The other one that you compare it with is international studies. So again like Kate was mentioning, you know, living in another country, learning another language and just being embedded in another culture and, and functioning in that way, having prepared for it during your studies. Kate, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that double degree that you did?

Speaker 6:

Yep. So as part of my double degree, I spent a whole year and two semesters in Chile in a town just outside of Santiago, which is the capital and either didn't vineyard Elba. I learned a whole lot about as it probably built me into really kind of understanding kind of empathetic person. I certainly have a lot more empathy for anyone. That's, doesn't have English as a first language and how much of a difficult time they have and how important communication is to me as an individual things like sense of humor and how much you rely on it as a human to communicate how you feel. But I think that makes me a better professional in the industry as well. But it also just makes me a better person. I was able to use my Spanish after I left university.

Speaker 6:

So I worked for a year in the United States in baseball and in baseball, in, in, in the U S particularly they have a lot of Latin American players that come over and play professionally. And I was able to communicate really efficiently with all those players because there were Spanish or Spanish speaking. And a lot of the workers that they've done the United States as well. So I think as an individual, it made me a lot more approachable in terms of working in a really multicultural environment and in a multicultural industry cause I was better able to communicate with I guess the key stakeholders in the game. And I think just a really kind of constructive sort of viewpoint on the English language is really helpful as well. So you're able to break things down and, you know, you know, why, or you have a really good understanding of English from learning another language. So that was really important to me. And it was just a fantastic experience for anyone who's looking to, if you're pondering probably a gap year taking international studies as, you know, an extra degree means that not only do you get to leave out that kind of get the dream of exploring and traveling and in meshing yourself in a new culture, as you said, but you get to do it really productively and getting a qualification that will help you in the future too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Thanks Kate. And Andy, if you're listening and thinking or international studies at the moment, that sounds a bit dicey or interesting bear in mind that, that, that double major, because you do learn another language as you go along and you learn about the culture it's a five-year program and you actually go away in year four, so would be good to think that in four years, everything will be functioning again, by the time you do that a reminder, put some questions in the Q and a, we have some more specific ones. Abby, what did tutorials involve in the communication degree?

Speaker 4:

I think the most important aspect of tutorials is getting to have that discussion with other students. It's definitely the thing that has enriched my degree the most is actually hearing

Speaker 1:

From people who just have different experiences and different perspectives. And I think that that is such a valuable part of what that tutorials facilitate. Thank you, Alice, anything from you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. In terms of what they practically look like. When I was at uni and just not along every, if it's the same, now you have about an hour of a tutorial and then you have a two hour what do they call it again? Yeah. Yeah. You got to, you've got a tutorial. Oh, electric one hour lecture and then a two hour tutorial, sorry, it's been a while since I left uni. And then you can have three hour seminars as well, which is basically a mixture between a tutorial and a lecture. And in the one hour lecture, you, you received the information that you need to know for the tutorial. And before, before any of this, you might get readings, you might get coursework to look at. And then in the two hours you have your, your tutor with you and you have probably about 20 classmates and you discuss the materials.

Speaker 3:

So like for example, I did a subject on you know, international relations. We'll, we'll read papers before the week of classes on a certain topic. Then we go and we learn about that topic more in the, in the lecture. And then in the tutorial we discuss it and discuss any assignments that we need to do. And yeah, the, the tutorials are really fascinating. You get to meet a lot of people in your degree. Especially in smaller degrees, like social and political science does less students. So you get to see people more often throughout your uni degree and make friends in that way. And it really does enrich your, your life experience. You're getting to hear other people's opinions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Thanks Alice. That's a good point. We always say in our industries it's about networks and it's about clusters and clusters of professionals. And often it's true for me, the people you meet at university you end up being in this cluster in this kind of creative group that tracks through their careers together and you often ring each other and lean on each other and opportunities come up and you work together. So those, those networks and those, those small groups where you've, you've formed, those networks are really important. What we're seeing since COVID is we're seeing more online delivery of content for the pure learning. And then when you turn up, you're having this high touch experiential moment with your colleagues in practice and, and, and really getting kind of your hands dirty when you come to university, when you come to campus, there's a real purpose to being there. Which is something that's I assumed belonging, if you like of COVID it's that we've been able to develop those ideas. Okay. And question for you, maybe from the, from the chat, one of the, some general activities a communications student do to build the basis

Speaker 3:

Of this

Speaker 6:

Skills. I think the most important skill I've built is writing unequivocally. Yeah. Writing is the most important skill that you'll build writing effectively writing to persuade writing to not to argue, but, you know, writing to justify a cause. In my role now I pretty much brought one or two sentences at a time. So I'm pretty selective. And you know, you're not in my role, I'm not writing long paragraphs or you know, thousands of words literally get it done in a caption. So I think being able to communicate effectively and particularly write effectively is the most important skill that I learned. So hope that answered that question.

Speaker 3:

Just jump in Mark. Yeah. It really depends what made you choose as well? So for example, I did an internship at parliament in my final year of my communications degree for social political science. And that's where I got to work with a minister, a member of parliament. And we spent five hours a week in her office and got to write her social media posts her media stories. I got to read her, write her briefings. And I wrote her a research proposal, which was my final subject. It was my final piece for my subject at uni. So you get really productive experiences like that. My friends who studied media arts and production got to make a movie and you do a lot of really productive things in, at UTS. And that's one thing that I really enjoyed about UTS.

Speaker 3:

I, I know a lot of people who studied similar degrees at other unis and UTS is very hands-on. You actually get to do the skills that you will be doing in the job. And so if you're a media arts and production student, when, when you're at uni, you will be making movies, you'll be learning how to do sound. You'll be learning how to edit. If you're a social political science student, you'll be writing the policy pieces, you'll be at parliament house working depending on what internship you should you choose. And I really want to stress for anyone thinking about what you use to choose. I really honestly believe that UTS does give you those really practical skills, and doesn't just teach you the theory and the education. It teaches you how to do it as well. And it puts you in touch with industry who will give you opportunities to work in their offices. And we have some amazing facilities that let us do that as well. We've got the media arts and production studios where people can go and film. We, they can rent equipment. And we've got some amazing tutors as well. I had a tutor who was the founder of get up for an, as a social political science student. The founder of get off is kind of a massive deal. So you learn from the best

Speaker 4:

And you build those skills. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, Alice. Yeah. And that is an interesting point. Kate, we had an inter industry group when we were designing the music and sound design program and we brought together a group of high level industry, people, performance, composers, everyone. And we said, what's the number one skill. We need to teach people in this program. And they said, teach them to write. And we thought they meant write music, but they didn't actually write words because you've got to be able to apply for funding. You gotta to be able to sell your stuff. You've got to be able to put your message out there. So that was very interesting. If you're to what schools do you think would help her communication student kind of profile?

Speaker 5:

Look, I have to agree with Kate writing is definitely in there. In terms of soft skills, things like the ability to engage people and the ability to influence people is, and to be a diplomat as well, because sometimes the communication is that you have to engage in art, you know, the way the ones that you would necessarily want to. But I think that influencing engage thing there's so important. And they're the foundation, I think, for any of these careers that we're talking about in any of those different disciplines, within communication, they're the two skills that I see that I are in the most demand, but also are the most important.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. We've still got a few minutes left, so put any questions into the Q and a box. There's a question about media arts production degree, and what's the student experience of that course. I can have a go at that. And that's a, it's a very practical course. It is. It's really about image making, whether it's documentary, whether it's experimental media arts whether it's sort of longer form drama, even animation. And in recent years, or this year we had the biggest number of VR productions ever done. So students are working towards their learning skills around cinematography, around producing around a whole range of skills that are involved in that industry. And by the end of it, they lean on, on those skills to create major works in the area that they're interested in. Abby, what's your favorite thing about being a comm student?

Speaker 4:

I think it's just really being extended by what we do at UTS and also the sort of extracurricular opportunities that UTS provides us. So extended in a lot of different ways academically. I just feel like I've flourished. And I've really accessed a place in my academic studies that I feel has so gone beyond what I was doing at high school, which obviously, you know, that's what you need for. But it's just even surpassed what I expected. And I thought that, you know, uni is obviously where you go to learn, but it's really sparked my passion for learning again. Especially after the HSE, which can be quite grueling. And also socially I think UTS does a great job of facilitating that experience, definitely in comms. There's a lot of different people that you meet given the seven majors and also just the fact that comms people often do interact with people from across the uni which is something that I've really enjoyed just meeting people who think differently from the way I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely. That's great. There's a question that says is the communication, the green mainly assessment and report based with few exams, which sounds exciting, wasn't it actually last count there was no exams. Whoever wrote that question, I don't believe in exams. I don't think in the modern world, you ever get locked in a room and need to regurgitate three hours of knowledge. Just in time learning is far more important about being able to access the information, having what Fiona was talking about, that problem, solving skills, being able to think critically and understand how to get to the answer that you need. And so a few years ago we abolished exams and yes, you're right. There's, there's far more creative ways to show what you know is how you synthesize knowledge together. So question for all the panelists, any advice for potential undergrads,

Speaker 3:

My advice would be to really find what you're interested in at uni. So once you start learning and if it's not the major that you like have a look at the other ones have a look at the elective subjects and choose what you're genuinely passionate about because that's what I did. And I feel like it really benefited me because when I went into job interviews, when I went into my internships that I got through uni, the people that I was working for could really see how excited I was about this subject areas. And there's so many amazing electives that UTS, I did one on empires. I did one on environmental communication. You can do so many interesting. You can do gender studies. If you're interested in those things, you, you have the ability to choose them as a communication student and really just go into that and see what you're interested in and, and see where it takes you. And put your hand up for extracurriculars, put your hand up for internships. Anything that you can do to learn and really prove your passion to people in the industry.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Piano. Yeah. I would underline that Alice, my advice would be do what you love employers by passion. And when you go for job interviews, they can tell straight away whether you're passionate about what you do. And there's an attitude with

Speaker 5:

HR, people in particular hiring managers in that that they will hire for attitude and they'll train for skill. So don't worry if you don't have all the skills for a job, if you're passionate and that shines through, you know, you're head and shoulders above most of the other candidates for a job. So as I said, I support 110% what Alice has said, and that is do what you love. And it's okay if you don't know that now it's okay is as a, a new undergrad or an incoming, you know, undergrad, if you don't know what that is, just come in and try everything. And eventually you'll discover something will like that flame. And you'll discover what that passion is. And it doesn't matter as Kate said, if you change, that's fine too. It's all about exploring something until you find where that passion sets.

Speaker 1:

And that speaks to a few questions that are in the, in the books around, you know, what if I can't get in, or I would always say to students, go and do something else. You know, th the other thing is there's, there's a whole suite of communication majors, right? So maybe you don't get into journalism, but maybe you do get into creative writing. So do creative writing and, and transition your way. It's very easy. You will be in the same group with the same students but go and do something else you know, in the tertiary environment, anything and, and if you do well in that, or even moderately, well, we care more how you're doing that, then you're doing the HSC. So after you've done a year of that, just transfer into the program, you want, there's lots of options to get in, to do that.

Speaker 1:

We, we don't do portfolio entry or things like that. But so one of the other questions, you know, exactly passion and interest is what we're about, you know, so when we're not expecting you to come in and be able to make a film already, or to be the greatest reporter, or, you know, to write the detailed policy and it's gonna change the world, the idea is that you come in with that passion for that. And, and we give you not even, we don't even tell you how to do it. We give you the means to find that, that growth within yourself and do that. Just one other question there, what's the creative writing major, like, well, it's, it goes to Kate's point earlier and say it's about writing and the ability to write. And it sounds like it's heavily weighted to run, to writing some brilliant Saifai novel, but it's not really it's about professional writing and it's about communicating in the right tone, the right audience in the right general. So it's, it's it's actually quite a popular program to come in and it's often a popular second major because people want that added writing experience. Just in our last couple of minutes, Kate, what advice would you give to potential communications students

Speaker 5:

To potential students would

Speaker 6:

Be to, I guess, absorb as much as you can to, you know, try as many new things as possible as possible. So I didn't know when I picked my degree and I guess similar to what Fiona said, I didn't actually know what I wanted to do with my degree when I picked it out of, at the end of year 12. But I picked a really long degree hoping that at some point I would find what I really wanted to do. And I was very yes, lucky that I did find a few really enjoyable experiences, particularly moving overseas that led me to live overseas and work overseas again. But I guess the most important thing is that you know, UTS taught me the skills I brought my passion as Yona touched on again. And that was a really good mix in terms of getting the most out of the experience as possible, getting the most out of an experiences as you possibly can.

Speaker 6:

So, you know, I went to uni games I did an internship similar to similar to Alice and got as much co-curricular experience as possible. And since joining the industry being able to adapt and be kind of ready for new experiences is a skill that has really held me in good stead. So this year during COVID re moved to Queensland, so we're a West Australian football team and we moved to Queensland and to be ready to kind of share that story and keep our fans from Perth and Western Australia connected to our experience in Queensland was a really important part of our football clubs journey through COVID and a really important part of what our fans were going through during this year as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely. It would be Abby, you're just finished second year. I'll give you the final, final word. What would you say to yourself two years ago? What advice would you give your, your, your own self?

Speaker 4:

I think it's definitely along the lines of what Kate was saying, which is just get involved and, and do what's available to you because UTS really does have so many great opportunities and I, a hundred percent, wouldn't be where I am in the job market in personal matters. If I hadn't gotten involved with Itzhak I sound a bit like I'm stroking, but it's really honestly what has made my uni experience, what it is like going to first year camp. It was a really difficult decision. I didn't know anyone. And I made the decision to go and it really just set me up for everything in the years to come. Especially in terms of meeting the right people and getting in with the right crowd, I guess, and, and being really motivated by my peers.

Speaker 1:

Thanks. That'd be, can I think all about panelists, Alice, Fiona, Abby, Kate, thank you so much. Wonderful insights, a wonderful passion and thanks to everyone for your questions, obviously. Our team is around. If you want to email us or contact us with any other questions, my name is Mark Evans. Feel free to email me and we'll, we'll help you make good decisions, hopefully as you look to your future. Thanks everyone.