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My name's Ralph Tucker. Today we'll be chatting with one of our recently appointed student ambassadors. We'll take us through their individual experience of doing one of Upskilled's courses. We hope by them sharing their journey and learning experience, other students will also take great benefit from it.
We'll be talking to real students with real challenges sharing real stories. Today we'll be joined by Adam Eker. Welcome to the Upskilled Masterclass Adam and congratulations on being named as an Upskilled student ambassador. Thank you very much.
It was a bit of a shock to be honest, you know, rock over a crab. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where you're from? What age you are and what you do for work?
OK, I'm 36 years old. I live in Brisbane. I am a manager of a spare parts store, which is part of a family company that has five stores. And I've been managing that store for the last seven years.
What course did you do with Upskilled? I'm actually, I've done five. So a few years ago, I did a certificate four in frontline management. And in the last two years, I've done four deployments.
I'm just about to finish my fourth diploma with them. Why did you choose Upskilled to do your qualifications? To be honest, the certificate was sent to me. It was just a fact I'm assuming just from advertising campaign.
And it was the government funded at the time. So I thought, look, I came into management without any previous experience or any formal training. And I suggested to my boss at the time, when I always wanted to be a manager, but he kind of just said, look, he's a chance if you want to have the crack here it is. So I said, right, I will do it.
But I didn't really have any experience or training. So I said, look, I'd like to have some training. And if this becomes possible at any stage, can we do it? And he said, sure.
And I think it was actually him that saw the facts first and said, look, if you want to do it's a course right here, you've got a little paper on it. So you go, and if you want to do it, you can. So I did that for a certificate for and really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the style of teaching and the trainers. And when it came time a couple of years later, in I thought certificate four, it gave me a good sort of head start into what I needed to get me in the right track.
But it wasn't really enough to sort of really make me an expert in my role. I just felt like it was more to learn. So I thought, you know, I was looking to the diploma level, which they had talked about when I was doing this certificate for. And yeah, there was quite a few in there that interest me.
So I put my hand up for the management, the diploma of management. And then while I was talking to the trainer that was delivering the course material for that, you know, explained what other modules were in other diplomas. And they interest me very much. So I did the diploma of business.
And then after learning all this sort of stuff, I kind of thought, you know, what, I'm getting a bit more interested in HR. So I did the human resources management diploma as well. By the time I finished that, I kind of turned the off paper because it's very intense. And I decided that while those skills were excellent for me to have as a manager, it wasn't something that I wanted to specialize in.
And then I thought, why not just finish off the quad, which was the business administration diploma. And then I've got the whole four in that course set. And yeah, so that's the one I'm finishing off at the moment. I've got one module that I'm just finishing off.
And yeah, I'll have the quad diploma of management business. Were you always confident or did you have any doubts along the way? Oh, for sure. I mean, I hadn't been to school since I was 16.
I left in year 11. I didn't finish high school. And while I was in high school, I didn't really excel at it because I wasn't interested and did very poorly because I didn't apply myself. So I kind of, not that I was looking down on myself, but I was worried that I didn't have as much training that other people would have.
I hadn't been to college or university. I thought this was going to be something that I can't handle. But I've never been one to back down. So I kind of went, this is what I want.
So I've got to make myself do it. I'll get through it somehow. I just sort of dug in and then thought, let's have a crack and see how it goes. It's too hard to do it.
But I'm not going to give up on it. I'll just do what I can. I was surprised at myself at how well I did. And throughout all of the certificate and the diploma, I actually got really high praise from my trainers on the quality of work, which always surprised me because I'm very, very hard on myself.
And always think that I can do better. So when did you think you were starting to make real progress in your mind? It wasn't until I sort of got through the second diploma. That's when I started to get real confidence in myself.
So I don't have the difficulty for it and two diplomas. And that's quite a bit of studying itself. But it still took me a while to really get that confidence in myself that I could take on anything and I could do it. And even potentially one day do a university degree as well.
Were there certain factors that encourage you to sort of keep going with everything that you were doing? Well, obviously that I wanted to have some sort of formal qualification so that one day I could potentially move up the food chain, get a better paid job and a higher ranking job. I'm only a storm and I've always seen myself as something more. Even when I started out as a storm and that wasn't what I wanted for my career.
That was just a stepping stone. I've always looked at myself. One day I want to be a CEO. I want to be one of the big boys.
I want to be running companies. So you can't run companies. If you don't finish your diplomas, you've got to, again, the diplomas are stepping into a university degree, which essentially could give me qualification to go higher in the industry or any industry that I choose. So that goal that one day I'm looking for big of things, that was the main thing.
But also that I hate to lose and I don't like to give up on things. Even if I'm doing really badly at something, I just don't like to just keep going and keep going and push and just try to get it finished no matter what that is. And doing that as well, even if you are doing poorly at something, if you keep continuing to do something, you're only going to get better because you learn from you in the States and you learn as you go through things. So if you give up, you're never going to know.
So that's something that drives me on as well. I might not be doing great at it now, but the more momentum I get, the better I'm going to get at it and the more I'm going to learn. So yeah, those things I suppose. What do you think were the biggest challenges with your studies initially?
Combinagement is the major hurdle that you have to overcome. Doing these courses teaches you time management, even if it's not a module in the courses. I have a full time job, which I work eight or five and then all the extras on top of that, that becomes a part of running a store when you do your hours before and your hours after. Things that need to get done, the kind of get done during store hours.
I have four children, two very little, a toddler and a baby. And this year I've gone from being morbidly obese to losing 32 kilos and changing pretty much every aspect of my health, including my diet. And I get up really early every morning to train before work as well. So all of that involved.
And then on top of all of that, I play grid on, I referee grid on and then I study. So trying to find the time inside of all of that to devote to the study is the hardest part. Because at the end of the day, even when you just get home from work, you don't want to do anything. You want to find your bum down on the couch and what's telling you.
But you can't do that. You've got to get online and you've got to get that starting happen because otherwise it won't get done. So finding the time to actually do it and that willpower to push you to actually do it. You've got to have that drive to one or six feet because if you don't, your course will just run out in the 12 months or the two years that you've got allocated and you won't get any of it done.
What were your family like when you told them you were going to do these courses? Did you receive a whole lot of support from them? Oh, my partner in particular for sure. We have two older children, so they pretty much looked after themselves of an evening anyway, once dinner and that's done, they can show themselves a bit of no drama.
But the two little ones that I have actually sort of happened in the timeframe that I started those four to five. So to start with, we probably weren't pregnant with the toddler at the time I took on the first diploma. And then he sort of, he sort of came in that time and then the next one's come as well. So yeah, my partner's been great, even though she's had those two little ones to worry about and been working, she was working during the pregnancy and then had the time off from the turn to leave in between as well.
She still made that effort to sort of support me so that I can take that time. Because if she hadn't done that, I wouldn't be able to do it at all. We had to work as a team to get through it. So she does deserve a lot of credit for me succeeding in these courses as well, for sure.
What were you able to use in a positive way in your work and also your life from what you got from those courses? Oh, lots, lots. Like I said, when I first took over managing that store, I had no experience. I had a lot of sales experience.
And I could sort of utilize some of that salesmanship to sort of get me through. But I had no real management skills. I had to kind of learn as I went, as I required to do something for my job, I had to learn it. And not only that being in a small family business, there wasn't a lot of protocols or policies in place that I could actually lean on to train me.
So I kind of had to develop my own way of doing things because it was very old school that I was run. So they only really sort of dealt with something I didn't need to deal with. So you're actually able to apply those skills that you were learning on the run in the business that you were working in. That's exactly right.
So as I was learning them in the courses, I would come back from the course and go, right, I know how to do this. So now we're going to start doing it here at my store. And it's funny because I've been doing the courses that a few of the other managers have been as well. And they've started developing the policies for the business during the time that I've been doing the train.
So we've kind of all been evolving together. It's been really interesting. And the people that have been doing those courses have obviously had a bit of input into those as well because they've been learning at the same time that they've been developing. So yeah, it's been really good.
But yeah, definitely, I've applied a lot of the stuff as I've been learning it too directly into my managing of the store. You mentioned, Dee, that you did the courses online. Do you feel as though you were part of a larger student community, even though you were probably doing it by yourself? Yes and no.
There's a very big social media group involved in up-field now as I finished off my fourth one. And it was kind of there as I was finishing off my third diploma. But the first two I kind of did do by myself. And other than other people in my course, which I would have emailed from time to time, I really was kind of just by myself.
So it is a lot better now. I do prefer this evolution of the up-skilled online portal the way that it's grown because you get a lot more access to people who you might not have even known are doing a course or even if they're not doing the same courses, they might have done your module or they might just have advice that can help you if you're struggling. Show you where to look for things. And the up-skilled support team, how beneficial were they in regards to what you were trying to achieve?
Yeah, they're really good. The support team and the trainers, I think particularly are great. They're always really, really helpful and really understanding. And well, they're there to help you.
They don't want you to fail. They want you to succeed. So pretty much anything you need, they can sort out for you. They're excellent.
And I've leaned on them from time to time. And I've had to. And I couldn't do it from myself. And I needed a bit of a leg up.
Yeah, they've been there to help me out. And you'd agree that your career prospects have definitely improved by doing all of these qualifications? Oh, sure. I've had quite a few job offers while I've been doing the courses.
But fortunate for my company, as I've been getting better at my job, they've been looking after me more in my financial package. So nobody's been able to sort of sway me to leave as yet. And also, like I said, I'm looking at something bigger and longer soon anyway. So that's the plan.
Get through these courses and start looking at the next level. So I've already done quite a few courses with up-skilled. Would you do another one? With up-skilled as a whole, like I would.
I don't think there's anything else in that sort of vein that interests me now. I think I've done them all or nearly completed the last one of them. If there was something at the next level that I could go to or something that was a little bit slightly different to what I'm doing, but would definitely help me in where I want to go with my career. I would definitely study with them again.
And I definitely do suggest them to people who are looking at studying. I'm always sort of sprucing them because I think they're a great company. That was going down the path of my next question. What advice would you give to new students or anyone considering doing a course with up-skilled?
Well, if they're going to do a course, then you would want to do it with up-skilled. I think based on what I've done with them, I wouldn't choose anyone else. There's a lot of them out there that are doing the same sort of thing. And I know that these guys are definitely trustworthy.
I know that the courses are accredited. And I know that this support system and everything is there. So definitely I would suggest people to do it. And the other thing is you just go and make sure that you do it.
You've got to push yourself to do it. If you want to do it's no point signing up for it if you're not going to actually have a crack. So if you go do it, go ahead and do it with up-skilled. Well, future is looking bright because of the courses that you've done with up-skilled.
Definitely. And not just the courses that I've done with up-skilled. The advice that I've gotten from the trainers while I've been doing it. Because they're very hands-on the trainers.
Even if you're doing an online course, they ring you, they email you quite regularly. So while you might not be exactly asking them questions about the module, they can give you a lot of advice on the industry or your job in different areas. They don't even apply exactly to the way the modules work. So they're excellent.
A great team. Thanks very much for joining us today. Adam, really appreciate your time. And congratulations again on being appointed as an up-skilled student ambassador.
Thank you very much. There he is, Adam, Edgar, and some really great advice for anyone looking to do up-skilled courses in the future. What an inspiring story. Thanks very much for taking the time out to listen today.
If you've got any questions or feedback, please head to the website up-skilled.edu.au. Don't forget you can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. You can also leave us a review or rating on iTunes, which would be greatly appreciated. And if you really enjoyed today's podcast with our student ambassador, Adam, Edgar, please tell a friend.
I'm Ralph Tucker. Thanks for listening. Thanks for downloading. And we'll catch you next time on the up-skilled Masterclass.
Thank you.