Trinity College Foundation Studies, University of Melbourne in Parkville, Victoria, Australia | Higher education

Trinity College Foundation Studies, University of Melbourne

Locality: Parkville, Victoria, Australia

Phone: +61 3 9348 7130

Address: Trinity College, Royal Parade 3052 Parkville, VIC, Australia

Website: www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/tcfs

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25.01.2022 Join us on Monday 30 November for our last live lecture of 2020. We will explore the role of biology in forensic science. Register now to secure your spot >> https://bit.ly/3lcolQE

24.01.2022 Congratulations to our recent February Main 2020 graduates! You deserve all the praise in the world. For those who missed it, you can catch the virtual valedictory ceremony by clicking the link below. Although we were unable to celebrate in person, we hope this virtual ceremony expresses how proud we are of each of you. We wish you all the best, and look forward to seeing all the wonderful things you'll do in the future.

23.01.2022 FS:30 | Cathy Symington | Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life. It’s an old adage that remains true. For biology teacher Dr Cathy Symington, it is solid advice that she’s been following for her entire career. A much beloved biology teacher in Trinity College’s Foundation Studies program, Dr Cathy has loved all things biology since she was a child. Driving her through university and a PhD, Dr Cathy loves to share her passion for the natural world with students. And her enthusiasm is infectious with students often completing the subject with a renewed sense of environmental responsibility that flows from the classroom to every day life. To read Cathy's story, click here: https://bit.ly/3csGoPO

23.01.2022 Big news: the 2020 edition of our annual magazine Trinity Today has been released! An interactive digital version can be viewed online. In this edition we are celebrating the members of the Trinity community who have made, or are making, a positive impact on the world as a result of their big ideas and dreams. This includes an Indigenous alum who has his eyes on the country's top job; actor, comedian and director Rob Sitch, who created some of Australia’s most iconic on-scree...n characters (this is going straight to the pool room); Dr Brendan Murphy, who helped steer us through the COVID-19 pandemic; funny man and TCFS alum Ronny Chieng, who starred in the Hollywood blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians and now has a plum correspondent gig in New York City; Chloe Buiting, who's on a mission to save our wildlife and fragile ecosystem; Jeanine Hourani, who is helping to share the stories of refugees in Australia; and Simon Griffiths, the entrepreneur who sat on a toilet for 50 hours to kickstart his highly successful social enterprise Who Gives A Crap. Suffice to say, there are a lot of big ideas in there. Happy reading!

22.01.2022 EXTRA! EXTRA! The annual Trinity College Foundation Studies Media Festival has gone digital! This annual exhibition celebrates the hard work of our Media & Communications students. This year’s event includes a one-minute student film competition, an industry panel and networking event (which is tonight!) and multimedia projects by our talented students. Click here to view the exhibition: bit.ly/30Boiqb And click here to join tonight's industry panel event at 8pm: https://bit.ly/3ljLbGz

20.01.2022 While we patiently make our way through this strange year, it’s wonderful to see signs of progress. Our future home for Trinity College’s Foundation Studies program is coming along nicely! We’ll be occupying six floors of this beautiful new space, located on Elizabeth Street, just down the road from the Trinity College main campus and The University of Melbourne. Our new Elizabeth Street campus will be purpose built and will include extensive formal and informal teaching spaces, a library, student common areas, kitchen facilities, and indoor and outdoor activity spaces.

20.01.2022 Want to learn physics? Join our next live online lecture this Monday 5 October at 8pm (AEDT) and learn about nuclear physics, the Big Bang, fusion and fission, elementary particles and accelerators. Register here: https://bit.ly/30qwklw

19.01.2022 G'day, mate! Our next FREE online lecture is this Monday. Join us at 7pm (AEST) on 14 September to learn about the origins and influences of everyday English in Australia and find out how it has developed our culture.... Register now at https://bit.ly/2GIFu60

16.01.2022 FS:30 | Wai Hong Fong | Boredom does not equal laziness. As a teenager trudging his way through a rote-learning education environment in Singapore, Wai Hong Fong (TCFS 2002) was bored. Moving to Melbourne and enrolling in Trinity College’s Foundation Studies program helped; in more ways than one. He formed genuine connections with his teachers and peers. And thanks to drama class, he learned to communicate better through storytelling and body language. It was these skills, a...long with a penchant for problem-solving, that helped him become a rather successful e-commerce entrepreneur, with some wonderful twists and turns along the way. In fact, it was a chance encounter with a frustrated retailer selling women’s lingerie that gave Wai Hong Fong the idea to create StoreHub a cloud-based point of sale system for retailers in Asia. Today, StoreHub is used by 14,000 retailers in more than 15 countries. ‘I think storytelling is probably the most underrated skill in business and in life. We're constantly telling stories every single day, and whether that's in sales or convincing someone about a claim or sharing a vision, it's all about good storytelling because that's how people connect.’

13.01.2022 FS:30 | Revd Kim Cruickshank | Growing up in Footscray in Melbourne’s west, the Revd Kim Cruickshank had always been surrounded by people of many faiths and backgrounds. After being ordained in 1992 (one of the first women in Australia to be ordained in the Anglican Church), the Revd Kim eventually found herself in the inaugural role of chaplain for the Pathways School, and the creator of the Chill Out program. Students were encouraged to bring in foods, objects or something... that represented ‘home’ to them, and share their stories with other students. ‘When you’re away from your family and so many things that are familiar, if you have a smell, a sight, a taste that’s like home, it makes a huge difference.’ And as the program grew, so did its physical occupation of Trinity: ‘There was an area facing the direction for Mecca, room for kids to wash their feet and hands if they were Muslim and wanted to pray, a place where communion and Christian gatherings could take placePeople could look at each other and say hello, safe in the knowledge there was mutual respect and interest.’ A sentiment that has been the Revd Kim's legacy. Click here to read her story: https://bit.ly/3f18kvs

11.01.2022 Join lecturers Joanne Boyle and Sara Evans on Monday 19 October at 8pm (AEDT) and explore echo chambers, viral news, 'fake news' and platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Register here >> https://bit.ly/30qwklw

11.01.2022 FS:30 | Stefanie Guntari | There's a reason why people will whistle with admiration when you mention you're in the middle of your PhD. It's an intellectual battle of the utmost scale: spending years, countless late nights and hours researching, testing, hypothesising. We've seen our fair share of Trinity Foundation Studies alumni run the PhD gauntlet. Stefanie Guntari knows it well: she lived and breathed polymer science for over three years. With support from her family and tight-knit friends from her Foundation Studies days, she emerged triumphant. And with any PhD, it was the promise of a breakthrough, just lurking in the distance, that kept her motivated. 'What kept me going is the fact that you never know how close you are to a breakthrough. That's why I just kept doing my best and trying my hardest.'

11.01.2022 Congratulations to the winner of our 2020 Trinity College Foundation Studies Alum of the Year award, Dr Michelle Lim! Dr Lim is a senior lecturer and an academic researcher in clinical psychology at Swinburne University of Technology. She is also the scientific chair of Ending Loneliness Together, which was established in 2016 as the Australian Coalition to End Loneliness. And in a year like 2020, where isolation and social distancing became commonplace, the importance of her... work was further augmented. Congratulations, Michelle! To read more, click here: https://bit.ly/3kzYCl0

11.01.2022 Yesterday as 70 international students landed in Darwin and started Australian quarantine as part of a pilot program, our Warden and CEO Ken Hinchcliff reflected on the heavy weight of their absence on the economy at large. 'International students are vitally important for the Victorian economy and we are shutting them out. In Victoria, international education is the state’s largest services export, generating $13.7 billion in revenue and employing > 80,000 people. Restrict...ions as a result of COVID-19 have hurt the universities. But not a lot has been said about the Melburnians who rely on these students to keep their businesses afloat. For every $1 that an international student spends on their tuition, they spend an additional $2 on food, accommodation, entertainment and general living expenses. International students being unable to enter Australia is financially crippling for Melbourne for businesses that rely on these students for their livelihoods. Last year, more than 250,000 international students contributed significantly to keeping people in jobs who, without this revenue, are now doing it tough. Read more about the very personal stories of how this issue is affecting cafe owners, the small grocers and the restaurants. The deadline is today for all states and territories to deliver proposals to the federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan on how overseas students can safely enter Australia. We need these students back for our sake, and for theirs.'

10.01.2022 Our next lecture in our online series is this Monday 21 September at 7pm (Melbourne time). Nature vs nurture: join us as we examine the biological, psychological, and social/cultural factors that contribute to behaviour, as well as the diversity of human experience. Click here to register your place > https://bit.ly/3c84UWg

10.01.2022 Are you currently studying science at uni? This is one event you wouldn't want to miss! Join our panel of Trinity alumni on Zoom next Tuesday, to learn about how their backgrounds in agriculture, maths, physics, environments and zoology have opened up their various career paths.

09.01.2022 FS:30 | Yuchen Wang | Trinity Pathways School is a facilitator of dreams. Every Foundation Studies student has a goal in mind when they start with us. Some may want to become doctors, others may want to graduate from The University of Melbourne with a commerce degree. Yuchen Wang knew exactly what he wanted: to get into one of Australia’s best performing arts institutions the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). It was an added bonus when he realised that Drama was a compu...lsory part of our Foundation Studies curriculum. ‘Drama class was my favourite. I could dream about being an actor, but it was also a great place for everyone to bond over make-believe.’ Through hard work and talent, Yuchen got his wish: eventually graduating from VCA and then establishing himself as a successful stage and screen actor.

05.01.2022 Vincent Ramos | FS:30 | The connections that our Foundation Studies students form with Trinity, with their peers and their teachers is almost instantaneous, and it’s everlasting. Vincent Ramos is a prime example. It’s at Trinity that he met his now-wife, Michelle. It’s where he developed from adolescent student to fully-fledged adult. It’s where he started his professional career. And it’s where he made lifelong friends. While Vincent’s life and career in alumni relations has taken him to the other side of the world and back, his connection to Trinity has never waned. ‘Over the years, I've had so many wonderful and different involvements with Trinity it's a place that will always be a part of me.’

05.01.2022 Networking is a powerful tool that can open doors and reveal hidden opportunities. But in this era of extreme ‘virtual fatigue’, is it possible to network effectively online? According to our recent panel of experts: yes. Foundation Studies alumni Cíntia Chen (TCFS 2009), Berlin Liew (TCFS 2007) and Chris Yong (TCFS 1997) jumped on Zoom to discuss the tips, tricks and benefits of virtual or remote networking. Click the link to see what our experts had to say.

05.01.2022 Want to study accounting? Join us this Monday, 28 September at 7pm (AEST) as we look into a real-life case study to learn how a business manages its finances, and see how financial manipulation can lead to fraud and the demise of an entire company. To register your spot click here: https://bit.ly/3kN5mg0

03.01.2022 Congratulations to our TCFS alum who recently received commerce scholarships at the University of Melbourne. Thirty of our students (twice as many graduates compared to the same period in 2019) received either a 50 per cent or 20 per cent fee remission for their course at Melbourne University’s Faculty of Commerce, which demonstrates the high calibre of students who enter the University system via Trinity College. Click here to hear what some of our happy scholarship recipients have to say about their time at Trinity and the College’s role in setting them up for success at the University of Melbourne: https://bit.ly/38Ne5vB

02.01.2022 FS:30 | Min Thant Aung | It’s fair to say 2020 didn’t quite go as Min Thant Aung [Tony] had planned (or anyone else for that matter). When his cohort started in February, it was all face-to-face classes, in-person events and no social distancing. Then COVID hit. Despite the technical hiccups and Zoom fatigue, Tony and his peers found ways to adapt. Through virtual social clubs, socially distanced meet-ups (when restrictions were relaxed) and connecting digitally with the wide...r Foundation Studies alumni community, Tony was able to firmly set roots down in Melbourne. Freshly graduated and with restrictions easing, Tony is ready to fully immerse himself in Australian culture and his next challenge a Bachelor of Design at the University of Melbourne.

02.01.2022 FS:30 | Irene Chandra | It’s a constant theme amongst our Foundation Studies graduates: ‘Trinity College taught me *how* to communicate’. It is easy to memorise theories and formulas, but it’s an entirely different experience to be given the tools to really explore ideas, understand how they came to be, and then present your ideas to others. For alum Irene Chandra (TCFS 2012), she uses these skills every day. Whether it’s in her job as an engineer in a high-hazard environment, or in her mentorship of young talent, Irene’s ability to communicate effectively and with passion has ultimately allowed her to build a fulfilling and exciting career. ‘I grow so much from these experiencesIt’s really special being able to pass on my knowledge of something that I love.’

01.01.2022 FS:30 | Denis White | When Denis White finished up as Malcolm Fraser’s chief of staff in 1983, he created a consultancy around a concept that, at the time, was both unpopular and overlooked: strategic planning. Fast forward almost 40 years and strategic planning in business is ubiquitous. It was fortuitous that such a visionary thinker happened across an ad for an executive director position at the Trinity Education Centre, now our Pathways School. During his incumbency, Denis helped grow our Foundation Studies program into an internationally-recognised and respected program. It was touch and go at the start, but from day one, Denis saw the potential. ‘We had a good program, and some very good teachers. So rather than look back and fix what had gone wrong, I decided to start afresh.’

01.01.2022 At Trinity, we’ve witnessed the maturation of many talented visual artists. Yesterday, was International Artists Day yesterday, so we wanted to take a look back at the story of Foundation Studies alum and internationally renowned installation artist 'Red' Hong Yi. Red was included in the Sotheby's Institute of Art's ‘11 world art entrepreneurs you should know’ list in 2018, and Tatler Magazine recently named her one of Asia’s most influential voices in 2020.