The International College of Management, Sydney (ICMS) has re-launched several new courses with an exciting, refreshed curriculum.
The undergraduate courses, which were given ‘no conditions’ accreditation for seven years by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), have been designed in consultation with industry to produce graduates who are work-ready and empowered to achieve their career goals once they have completed their studies.
“This is revolutionary in the higher education landscape, both here in Australia and abroad,” ICMS CEO and President Dr Dominic Szambowski said.
The modern new subjects include business focused titles such as ‘Pathways to Success’, ‘Unlocking Your Leadership Potential’ and ‘Creativity and Innovation for Business’. Innovative elective subjects allow students to tailor their course to their interests. For example, those keen to develop their own start-up business in the future could pick subjects like ‘Entrepreneurship Foundations and Mindset’, ‘Venture Ideation and Validation’ and Innovative Disruption’. And those interested in travel could study ‘Tourism, Technology and Innovation’, ‘Cruise Management’ or ‘Airline Management’. There are many exciting new subjects in the refreshed curriculum. Feedback from students has been especially positive for level 300 subjects ‘Blogging Your Way to Fame’ and ‘Sports Futures’ and level 200 subjects like ‘Bar and Mixology’ and ‘Guerilla Marketing’.
Dr Margot McNeill, ICMS Deputy Vice Chancellor (Learning and Teaching), added: “The courses have been ‘backward designed’ by consulting extensively with industry to find out what the graduate capabilities are that industry wants from graduates they will likely hire. We then took those graduate capabilities and we have weaved them into every single subject and outcome for all the courses. It’s cutting-edge because it is actually guided by industry and designed for graduate employment.”
The ICMS 21st Century Graduate Capabilities are:
“The power of backward design is that ICMS graduate capabilities influence course learning outcomes, subject learning outcomes, assessment strategy, topics and resources, all in a top down fashion giving greater focus on capabilities that will put ICMS students ahead of their contemporaries in the job market, and put them in a position where they automatically add value in the workplace. This, in turn, will lead to greater recognition and rewards for them by industry via this mutually-beneficial relationship,” McNeill said.
While ICMS has offered degrees and diplomas since the award-winning institution was founded in 1996, the ‘new’ courses launched build on the foundation of degrees previously offered.
The refreshed ICMS bachelor courses are:
ICMS also currently offers Bachelor of Property (Development, Investment and Valuation), Bachelor of Business Management (Accounting), and Bachelor of Business Management (Fashion and Global Brand Management).
“We had to consider the lay of the land and here in Australia, entrepreneurship and innovation are highly prized, as well as graduates who come into, or alongside, existing companies and add value from the start. We aim for our students to enjoy their work, contribute to their workplace and derive a sense of personal achievement in what they do for a living. A thriving employee, in return, will naturally be recognised and probably promoted above more stagnant colleagues. By internalising these graduate capabilities, we are helping ICMS students achieve personal success in their professional lives,” Szambowski said.
ICMS offers fewer exam-based assessments, and have flexible options to complete degrees, from accelerated to tailored versions. Students are assessed through real-world assessments and activities which become portfolio entries. This allows students to use these pieces of work when furthering their careers, for example as samples of work to be used in interviews.
“We are ‘closing the loop’ to get ICMS students ready to forge their way in their chosen field of industry, taking them from the beginning (pathway to success), through the middle (Work Integrated Learning) and ending with a Capstone that will consolidate everything the student has been taught in the course of their degree.”
Active learning and learning by doing, through WIL built into every degree, is also part of ICMS’ strategy to prepare graduates to take their place in the working world.
“Active learning is ‘deep learning’. We strongly believe that students who are given the opportunity to actively practice what they will potentially be doing in the real world will internalise lessons learnt, enabling them to absorb critical knowledge, and to be able to recall what they have done to a far greater extent than had they just sat in a lecture theatre,” Szambowski said.
“We don’t just want our graduates to achieve career success, but also success in life as well.”
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