The 'Hello Vietnam' Exhibition

‘Hello Vietnam’ was one of the big cultural exhibitions which were held for international students in Melbourne. It was unforgettable event with all Vietnamese students, particularly me because I had opportunity to perform the Vietnamese musical instruments and introduce the Vietnamese music to all audiences.

The exhibition included many small exhibitions, such as Food Exhibition, Culture Exhibition and Music Show. All Vietnamese tradition pictures, hats, dresses and food was delivered from Vietnam and exhibited in this event. There was tradition pictures with calligraphy, hats was made by coconut leaves, and a lot of Vietnamese candy, jams. Interestingly, the music show was held with many dances and performances, which was performed by Vietnamese students in Melbourne. Some of them were students, but their performances looked like professional performances.

The exhibition happened and received a lot of positive feedbacks from the Melbourne’s government, the director from many Universities in Melbourne and the bravos from international students in Australia. Hopefully, many cultural exhibitions, such as Vietnamese exhibitions, Thailand exhibition or Chinese exhibition will be held in Australia to introduce an Australia multicultural society to international students in the world.

The library in CQUniversity Melbourne

It can be seen that every university have at least one library for their students to study. Same as these universities, CQUniversity Melbourne has a library at level 4. Even though the library is not too large, it has all academic materials as well as CDs, computers for the learners at CQUniversity Melbourne.

I can say that there was a change in library to get better day by day. In term One, the library had a lot of academic materials for Accounting, Marketing, Computers, but few books for the Arts subjects, especially the Creative Enterprises subjects. It was undeniable that the academic materials for Accounting, Marketing, Computers was crucial because most of students in CQUniversity studied these subjects; however, if the library could keep a balance between the amount of Economic books and the Arts books, it would be better.

Surprisingly, the library has a big change in term Two. A lot of Art books as well as the e-materials are bought. It is getting easy for Arts students when they want to find the materials for their research in CQUniversity’s library rather than in other libraries. Moreover, many services are supported by the professional librarians such as helping with searching materials, borrowing books or providing short courses about using the library for new students. As a student who is studying in CQUniversity Melbourne, I can say that CQUniversity has a profound care to all students and we are happy with this interest.

Friends at CQUniversity

Living and studying in Melbourne, I have a lot of friends. Even though we come from many different countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, China, or French, we become close friends after three months studying at CQUniversity.

Panesorn and Sayed are my close classmates. They come from Thailand and India, and we become close friends after three months studying together at CQUniversity. Panesorn is thin, she has long hair and never ties her hair while Sayed is tall, healthy and has tawny complexion. Studying together in all subjects, we usually share our learning experiences and study together to help each other learning better. For instance, when we have heavy assignments, we sit together, discuss about the assignments and find the way to solve the problems. Panesorn is an intelligent girl; she often has some interesting ideas, which help us get the good marks for our assignments. On the other hand, Sayed used to be a designer in India, so he helps us to design our presentations, make it perfect to achieve the high results from the lecturers. Even though we come from different countries with different culture background, the friendship and the study environment at CQUniversity make us become closer.

Moreover, I still have some friends, which are studying in different faculties in CQUniversity. Tippiwan is another Thais girl, who is very lovely at CQUniversity. She is studying Master of Accounting and very busy with her studies and her working. We knew each other when we studied in GEOS-an English centre in Melbourne. Become close friends, she always helps me and gives me some good advices when I need.

It can be said that the study environment at CQUniversity help us become close friends. Every day, we have changes to learn from each others, sharing the study experiences and hobbies. All these experiences at CQUniversity help us become close friends forever.

Mt Buller- the Snow Trip 2010

Winter in Melbourne is the season for people enjoy the snow trip. Studying and living in Melbourne, this is the first time I have change to enjoy a snow trip with my friend.

We started at 6am from Melbourne and arrived in Buller Mountain at 10am. The temperature outside was around 2 degree, so we all wear warm clothes, gloves, sport shoes and eager to see snow and skiing. At Buller, even though it was very cold, we played with snow and made the snow man. Besides, there was a restaurant in the top of Buller, where we had lunch with KFC, hot milk and chocolate. Some of my friends, they hire the snowboards, boot and toboggans, then play skiing.

After four hours playing with snow, we took a lot of photos and leave from Buller. Everybody have a great day. We are sure that we will come to Buller Mountain again in the next winter.

Shopping Shopping Shopping

Go shopping is one of the most popular entertainment for almost people in Australia. Specially, with overseas students in Melbourne, the Boxing Day and Sales at the end of winter are two big sales in every year, when they can buy not only their fashion clothes, also everything for their life with affordable prices.

In Boxing Day, people can buy their stuff with half prices or cheaper. This is a national public holiday in Australia and New Zealand, is celebrated yearly on December 26, a day after Christmas Day. Boxing Day got its name from an old traditional when employers boxed gifts for their workers on the day after Christmas. At Chadstone, Southland, or DFO, many luxury garment, cosmetic and perfume are all discounted but they are good quality.

In addition, there is a big sale at the end of every winter at Melbourne. People go shopping to prepare for a great summer with swimming or sporting clothes. At many big shopping centers around Melbourne, especially DFO, winter clothes are put away, make room for summer clothing with bright colors and varied styles. Students are also special guests because they often use fashion clothing, cosmetic or perfume in their studying and working in Melbourne.
It can be said that studying as overseas students in Melbourne means not only studying at University or part-time hard working, but also enjoying big shopping seasons.

Party Party Party.....

As a tradition in our faculty, after semester 1 finished, we celebrated a small party for our supervisor and all classmates. This was time for us to relax and remember all nice memories we got during the first term at CQUniversity.

Our small party was celebrated in a beautiful restaurant, which was very near from CQUniversity. After 15 minutes walking from CQUniversity, so wonderful, a nice restaurant appeared in front of our eyes with many kinds of plants and flowers. Specially, we were attracted by foods with good smells and different tastes from many countries such as India, China, and Vietnam, which was decorated in a large table inside this restaurant. Choosing our own meals, we sit together in a small table, enjoin food and had a chat in a warm atmosphere even though the weather outside was very cool. Camera was used to take many pictures because we all wanted to keep them as a nice memory. Mrs Tris-our supervisor, she asked us about our plans in the future and gave us some useful suggestions with a thoughtful attitude. It can be said that during only one semester studying and working together, there was no gap between supervisor and students at all.

Finishing the buffer at 2pm, we went to the park next to this restaurant and took a lot of pictures. This term, two of our friends would finished their study and graduated from CQUniversity, this was time for us to keep all memories with our classmates and lecturer.

Finishing the party, we said good bye to each other and wishing them have a good holiday. During this winter, some of our classmates would visit their home countries, some of them still lived in Melbourne for their working. Hopefully, we would have more happy days to study and work together at CQUniversity.

An unforgettable memory

Giving a good presentation is one of the important learning skills students develop in universities in Australia. In CQUniversity, all students have to do presentations as a part of their study. With us, the Creative Enterprise students, we had an unforgettable official presentation day in front of all staff at the end of Term One. This activity was useful for us because it not only improved our presentation skills, but was also considered a professional working experience in our resume.

Rehearsing is one of the important steps to do before a presentation. All of our presentations were put together to form a large presentation, then we rehearsed several times to make sure we would give a good performance.

Next day was an unforgettable official presentation day for us. Although we did our presentation at lunch time, all staff participated to encourage our motivation. At the beginning, a brief presentation was presented by our supervisor- Dr. Tris; she introduced our programme-Master of Creative Enterprise, and then she did a short introduction about students’ background. After that, I was the first person doing the presentation about ‘How much security is enough at open-air events?’

Sayed- an Indian student was the next person. He talked about ‘Why does the world need advertising?’ AFter Sayed was Panisorn, who showed her thesis ‘What is the socio-economic impact of major sporting events?’ Finally was Ning Yang- the Chinese student, who introduced to the audience his interest research on ‘Why is Asia buying more haute couture than Europe?’ Of course, there were some mistakes in our presentations because this was the first time we presented our research in front of all staff. However, we received many claps from audiences.

Even though the weather was cool outside, we finished our presentation successfully in a warm atmosphere at CQUniversity’s main hall and received many claps from all staff. It was an unforgettable day. Encouragement from staff, some help from Dr. Tris will always be a nice memory in our studies. Studying at CQUniversity, we wish we will have more useful activities like this presentation in the next term.