Students from Indonesia and Thailand were hosted at CQUniversity Sydney recently, after winning a T-shirt design competition with the theme 'There's Nothing Like Australia'.

As well as winning travel, accommodation, tourism experiences and cash, the students spent two weeks with the Creative Enterprise and Design program team at the campus in Ken Street.

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The Quiksilver & Roxy T-shirt competition was organised in association with Tourism Australia. This year's winners were Kavin Thienvutichai and Saran Pothacharoen from Bangkok, Thailand, and I Gede Eka Landika (Bali) and Jaka Perkasa (Jakarta) from Indonesia.

Thanks to CQUniversity, the winning students networked with multimedia industry contacts and attended relevant classes and exhibitions during their stay.

Visit coordinator Kathleen McKenzie provided the following report:

"We started off with getting our visitors CQUni student photos and ID cards and gave them a walking tour of CQUniversity.  An Australian orientation was given by Dr Ross Lehman which included Australian food, habits, culture, a few Australian greetings and a taste of the famous Pavlova.  The IT department connected the students' laptops so that they could access their emails. 

"Sightseeing activities included the Sydney Opera House, St Mary's Cathedral, the Harbour Bridge, Australian Museum, Bondi Beach, White Rabbit and 4A Centre for Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Queen Victoria Building, Darling Harbour, the Sydney Aquarium, Australian Wildlife, The Rocks and the Sydney Explorer bus.

"The students enjoyed a variety of classes and experienced what it was like to participate in classes in an Australian environment, as well as the methods of teaching we use in Australia.

"The classes encompassed a wide range of subjects in order to give the students as wide an experience as possible.  These classes included English language with four different ESL teachers - all were interactive so that they could use all of their macro-English language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.  They enjoyed bouncing words and sentences off each other in class, writing and giving short presentations, as well as interacting with other students from around the world.

"They also enjoyed the IT classes.  These were made up of 3-D and multi-dimensional work.  It gave the students an opportunity to use the experience and skills that they already had and to apply them as a digital project to real life.  These classes were a mixture of online design, video production, animation, social media, and mishaps.  This was exciting as an extension of their own design studies.

"Their comments on leaving to fly home were that they had a fantastic time - something they had never thought could happen to them. Sydney was a beautiful place and the people were so friendly. (Our two Indonesian boys got lost the second day that they were here and they said that Sydney-siders were so approachable and helpful). They said that the experience had made them more aware of everything in terms of design - shapes, colours, everyday objects, and how they could translate an idea into a visually practical and satisfying object.

"Overall, the Roxy-Quicksilver-CQUniversity international design scholarship program is a great way to give students the opportunity to experience another culture, interact with other students of a similar age and pursue the subjects that really interest them.  It is certainly a great way to create better understanding and better relationships among future global employees and future creators and innovators."