Good day and welcome
to A Life That Travels.
I'm Rob Malicki and today,
we're at the University of
Technology in Sydney UTS.
And I'm standing in front
of what is soon to be
Australia higher
education's newest building,
building number two, right up there.
We're gonna go and take a look around UTS.
I absolutely love this place.
So much to see, so much
innovation that happens here,
and by the end of this video,
you should know much better
whether or not this
might make a good place
for you to come and study.
Like all A Life That
Travels university reviews
and other content, this
is completely unbiased.
I have no agenda here other
than helping you understand
a little bit more about
what this place is like.
Let's go check it out.
(upbeat music)
(calm music)
I'm here in the central courtyard area.
I actually used to do a
bit of work here at UTS
for a couple of years.
And back then, pretty much all we had
was building number one,
which was actually voted
as like Sydney's most
ugly building (laughs)
for its kind of prison-like architecture.
In this outdoor area
there was nothing else.
Kind of another building
over, down this end,
and now you can see they've actually
completely transformed this central area.
So you've got these
brilliant new buildings,
spectacular building number two, up there,
and this brilliant central
courtyard for students.
And then what I'll do is
drop in some footage here
of later in the day, what this looks like
once it's full of students.
It's absolutely extraordinary.
And this is what they
call the tower building.
The tower building was
the first building at UTS
and you can see it was probably built
back in the 60s and 70s,
where this pre-fab concrete
(laughs) was all the rage.
It's absolutely, catastrophically ugly.
The university struggled for many years
trying to work out what the
hell to do with this building
and came up with kind of the
conclusion, I think rightly,
that's it's not about replacing
that kind of ugly history,
but it's actually just complementing it
with this kind of beautiful,
new, glassy infrastructure
that you see elsewhere around UTS in town.
And so right beside it, complete contrast.
Building number two,
absolutely extraordinary,
big windows, lovely curves.
And what you end up with is this contrast
between old and new, old
(laughs) like a prison,
(laughs)
and new, gleaming, corporate, flowing,
all those kind of things
that we love to see
in modern architecture.
Over recent years, Australian universities
have been building a lot.
The federal government put a lot of money
into new infrastructure at
universities over recent years.
But, honestly, UTS I think have
been one of the institutions
that has done the most with that funding.
They've really transformed
what was in some ways
a bit of grubby old
buildings in the inner city
into this really sparkling precinct,
full of different
opportunities for students
and really just like top level buildings,
including the Frank Gehry building,
sometimes criticised as
like a brown paper bag.
But it just shows this is
a university of technology,
it's all about innovation
and you really get the feel for that
when you're walking through
its various buildings.
Actually, this is an interesting one.
Chinese medicine at UTS.
This is like the most prestigious
Chinese medicine programme
in all of Australia,
and they have recently
decided that they're gonna be closing
the Chinese medicine programme,
teaching out the courses,
so there's obviously
a bit of a campaign on
to try and save it.
This is like the health and gym area.
Obviously, I can't go in there
because you've got people working out
so we want to maintain their privacy.
But the facilities, I can tell you,
having actually worked here
for a little period of time,
great facilities here at UTS.
I'm out on Harris street.
Very busy street, as you can hear,
but that's the inner city for you.
Just across the road, there, is the ABC,
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Not quite sure about the
linkages between ABC and UTS,
if there's a lot of collaboration.
But that's obviously
one of the key places.
And just over here, on
the other side, we've got
the Sydney Institute of Tafe.
So if you are a student who's
studying at the Tafe level
and maybe looking to transfer across,
literally a lot of courses taught
just across the road, here.
This is, look, this is not
part of this video, all right?
But Sydney Institute of Tafe
is really a fantastic
institution in its own right.
At some point I'll try and
do a review about them.
So I've just walked out
of the main part of UTS.
I've walked across Harris
Street and I'm just heading down
to the secondary section
of the university,
which is where you find
the business school
and the law school
and some of the other
buildings, et cetera.
And this is great because
you're close to Darling Harbour.
You're so close to Chinatown
and there are just so
many great places to eat
and hang out down here as well.
So it really is,
if you're an inner city kind of person
and you like the hustle and bustle,
the perfect place to come and study.
The most important order of business,
coffee first thing in the morning.
So many options in and around UTS.
This is the University.
This is one of my favourite little places
which does a really little brew.
Just the other side of
Harris Street, building six.
Let's do it.
(relaxing music)
Thanks, guys.
Have a great day.
Right, very important order
of business taken care of.
Other favourite coffee place is on campus
down on Harris Street,
Toby's Estate
I think it's called.
I'm gonna show them to you.
When I was working here, at UTS,
across the other side
of the street, there,
was basically just a brick pit.
It was like a brewery, sorry.
So like these kind of old
buildings and heaps of space.
And now, it's actually been transformed
into this most spectacular
green building, living building.
There's a huge wall in there.
Lots of residential apartments.
Literally, there is so much
for you to do, in and around UTS.
It's extraordinary.
Extraordinary!
Right, this is what I'm talking about.
Little bit later in the day.
Checking out this sort of
central student courtyard area.
And that's just pretty awesome, isn't it?
Everybody chilling out on the grass.
It's a beautiful day.
On the deckchairs, conversing.
That's like such an important
thing for universities,
is having some sort of
places where students
can congregate, work
and catch up, hang out.
This central section is
absolutely beautiful.
Awesome.
Here's what it is.
New UTS student central
area will be opening
literally next week.
But for now, all closed up.
So by the time you watch this video,
this is gonna be open
and cranking. (laughs)
You can literally see people in there,
putting cables up in the
roof, finishing it off.
This is gonna be pretty cool, folks.
Very nice new addition to
a very good university.
Awesome.
The university was actually founded
in 1988, so it's a
relatively young university,
but its history goes back
a lot longer than that,
back to at least the
1940s, when it was founded
as the New South Wales
Institute of Technology.
And it's had several iterations.
Some people will date the
history of the origin of UTS
all the way back to like 1830.
So it's a place that's
been kind of on this site
and under development and evolving
for a very, very long time.
1988 though.
It's pretty recent for a university.
Just about 30 years, a
little bit over 30 years.
And the thing to really
remember about that
is that this is an institution
that has come so far
in such a short period of time.
It's consistently ranked,
if not the best young
university in Australia,
then it's certainly amongst
the best young universities
in the country, basically at
every ranking that you look at.
And honestly, as somebody
who's watched this institution
from the outside and has
done a bit of work in here
as well, it's a place that seems to be
really moving and shaking.
Innovation and entrepreneurship
are both huge disciplines here.
And certainly something
that the university
has prided itself on
is being a fast mover.
One of the things that I'd
actually put that down to
as an industry observer and
someone experienced in higher ed
is the fact that it's had
really stable leadership.
The previous vice chancellors
and even the current vice chancellor,
I've got a lot of respect
for the leadership
that they've shown.
And one reason that an
institution like this can thrive
and grow and succeed is because
it's had a really clear vision
that's been seen through
from the beginning to where we are now.
So, all those things are
definitely positives for UTS.
We're inside building 11, which is
the new engineering building,
here at the university
and probably a good place
to talk about rankings.
UTS punches well above its weight.
Not only is it the number
one young university
in the country, but it also ranks
inside the top 10 Australian institutions.
40 universities in the
country, so it's just outside
what's called the Group
of 8, the sandstones.
University of Sydney and UNSW.
Right behind that, you've
got an institution like UTS
which is absolutely indicative
of great quality teaching
and research that it puts out, here.
On a global scale, on the major rankings,
UTS is now inside the
top 200 in the world,
definitely putting it
well inside the top 1%
of institutions all around the globe,
which is an impressive result indeed.
So rankings (mumbles) 140
in 200 all across the world.
So if rankings are important to you
this is certainly a place
that is kicking goals.
Now, when it comes to rankings,
one of the things you
should always think about
is looking into the detail.
Because
everybody is different
and every institution
has got strengths and weaknesses.
So what you should think
about doing is looking
at the Australian Government's
quality indicators
of learning and teaching,
the QILT website and I'll
drop in the URL right here.
Www.qilt.edu.au.
On the QILT website,
you can actually look up
every institution in the country,
as well as all the
different discipline areas
and you can see how students
who've actually studied here
have rated their experience.
So both the quality of
the teaching and learning,
the graduate outcomes,
whether or not they've gotten jobs easily.
All those things are trackable via QILT.
And if you look on there for UTS,
UTS actually does relatively well.
It is a very, very large university.
50,000 students at time of filming.
Something like 70% of
those are undergraduates
and then another sort of
15% doing postgraduate
and research programmes.
So it's quite a large institution,
but the resources are amazing here.
Ranking are really good.
I really feel like this institution,
a lot of people look at
Uni of Sydney and UNSW
and think that those are the only
really two prestigious options, but UTS
is definitely nudging itself
into that space as well.
Certainly one of the
advantages of UTS as you'll see
is that getting here is really easy.
Out here on Broadway.
Major street.
You've got all the buses
going all over the city
and the central station literally,
like a couple of hundred
metres up that way,
so all the mainline
trains pull in here too.
So certainly in terms of access,
you've got fantastic access getting here,
which is definitely a plus
and makes things easier.
On campus, there's also
great end of trip facilities
if you're gonna come cycling
into the institution.
There are some parking garages
but they're pretty expensive.
I certainly would not be driving
in here every day. (laughs)
Very expensive.
But to ride a bike, for sure.
Awesome facilities, lock up
your bike, have a shower.
Definitely a good way to get here, too.
It's like there's like a
little Leonardo da Vinci expo
going on here in the engineering building.
I was actually just in France
and I'm gonna drop in a few
frames from du Clos Lucé,
which is in Amboise in
France where da Vinci died.
And his final resting place,
final place he lived.
It was an amazing exhibit.
So let me drop in some comparison footage
of some of his exhibits from France.
Look, I am well impressed.
This is the new engineering building
but you go into any of
the new buildings here,
and I've popped in and out of a couple,
I just don't wanna film in all of them,
and the student facilities
here are absolutely incredible.
They've really paid so
much attention to creating
these kind of collaborative
spaces where people can connect.
The Wi-Fi's okay.
You can sit and work together.
Either work on projects
or meet up with people,
so respect to the university
for really dedicating
the funds needed to actually create
a great student learning experience.
Let's talk about extra curricular options
and the university here
has done a phenomenal job
in actually curating, really
one of the best series
of extra curricular possibilities
amongst all the Australian universities.
It has an absolutely exceptional
entrepreneurship unit.
And in terms of its internationalisation,
opportunities for students
to go and study overseas,
do a study tour, a short
term programme, an exchange.
You really have just so
many opportunities here.
It's one of the most successful
study abroad programmes
in the country, so that's
obviously fantastic
if you want to travel
and experience the world
as part of your degree.
Tonnes of different
disciplines are available
to study here at UTS.
Everything from, as you would expect
at a technology institution,
things like data sciences
and engineering and IT, right through
to your health sciences, law,
international studies is very good here.
Science and maths on the
engineering side, of course.
A very good business school.
Strong in communications
and obviously, once again,
that kind of technology side,
in design and architecture
and building all taught here
and very, very well reputed.
I've had a fantastic time
checking out the absolutely
vibrant campus of UTS.
And I reckon if you're
coming here to study,
you're in for some really good things.
I'm gonna make a massive call.
I'm an entrepreneur.
I've started businesses, you know.
They've been pretty successful.
I've travelled all over
the world, backpacked,
business trips, you know,
whatever it might be.
And this place really resonates with me.
You've probably gotten a feel for that
as I've been walking around.
Just the way that it's sort of embraced,
not only its history, but created like
the most spectacular
facilities for students.
It's teaching, entrepreneurship,
extra curricular
offerings are all really up to the mark.
Like highest level in
Australia kind of thing.
If not best in Australia,
but very high up.
You know what I mean?
And I reckon that if
I was coming back, me,
knowing what I know now about myself,
entrepreneur, business,
wanting to push myself further,
travel the world.
UTS is definitely, definitely a university
that I would strongly consider
as a place to come and study.
So, if it's on your list,
I reckon this would be
a good option for you.
Anyway, hit me up in the comments.
Do you study at UTS?
What's your experience here?
Do you have any questions?
Hit me up down in the comments.
That would be incredibly useful.
And I'm Rob Malicki.
Thanks for joining me
on A Life That Travels.
We'll see you next time.
Have a great day.
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