Feature
Student
Real-world experience helped Nikia get her dream-job
In the past two years, Nikia Shaw has had the opportunity to work on over 40 conferences. As a conference assistant at Conference Design, Nikia assists in all aspects of setting up and running conferences. This includes creating websites and apps, organising sponsorships and exhibitors, and manning the registration desk and liaising with delegates during the conference. Nikia, 21, says the real-life experience gained during her TasTAFE Drysdale Diploma of Event Management has been invaluable in giving her a range of skills to draw on in her work. “The Diploma was fantastic – the best thing I ever did. I got lots of hands-on workplace experience. We got to work on Dark Mofo, the Festival of Voices, Ten Days on the Island and Spiegeltent. I also got to work on designing the Winter Feast at Dark Mofo.
“Through all of those workplace experiences I got an idea of how the events industry works and got to meet lots of people in events which is really important in the industry.” Nikia did a Certificate II in Tourism while in Year 12 at Guilford Young College and then went on to a Certificate III in Events at Drysdale before completing the Diploma of Event Management in 2015. A four-week internship with Business Event Tasmania during her Diploma led to Nikia getting her job at Conference Design. She has clearly impressed her employers, who have nominated her for the 2018 Tasmanian Young Achiever Awards because of her excellent customer service and willingness to help her younger workmates. Nikia is a finalist in the Spirit of Tasmania Tourism and Hospitality Award category, with the winners to be announced on 21 April. Nikia says she is honoured to be nominated for doing something that she loves. “I’ve just started to do a few of my own conferences which is fantastic and really exciting. “In the future I’d love to keep working my way up, hopefully to a manager role. I’d love to be able to manage my own conferences and be a really great events manager,” Nikia said. To find out more about TasTAFE Drysdale courses visit: www.tastafe.tas.edu.au or phone: 1300 655 307.
30
enquiries@tha.asn.au 03 6220 7300
Hospitality Review
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online