UCOL Blog

Young and older have flocked to the first polytechnic beauty services programme to be offered in Whanganui.

The Certificate in Beauty Services is available at Whanganui UCOL for the first time this year. It was amongst a suite of new programmes introduced in response to community demand. In its inaugural year, it has attracted students ranging in age from 16 to 50+ and the capacity class of 38 has had to be divided into two groups.

Students Amelia Laing and Nina Gilbert are thrilled with their first semester. “It’s brilliant!” they say. Both Amelia (30) and Nina (18) studied previously at UCOL for their pre-apprenticeship hairdressing qualifications. They now share the desire to extend their skills to “more than just hair”.

The programme not only includes practical and theoretical knowledge of beauty services for the face, hands and feet. It also covers aspects of human physiology and anatomy, chemistry and business.

The students work with clients once a week in the purpose designed facility in UCOL’s Bennett building, applying what they have learned in a real-life setting.

Beauty Lecturer Anne Lindsay says “The student retention rate is amazing. It is beyond what we expected” says Anne. “They have taken their study very seriously and are determined to have a career in the beauty industry.”

Anne says she expects the Certificate in Beauty Services to be just as popular next year. “We are up there with the best equipped beauty schools in the country.”

Photo: Amelia Laing treats her ‘client’ classmate Rochelle Hopkinson. Nina Gilbert is in the background.

Firstly I would like to say welcome to UCOL! Like always, O-Week is AS@U’s way of kicking off the semester with games, food, music and giveaways.

This semester I am a student with my massive one paper! Unfortunately my classes just happened to fall on the O-Week schedule Monday and Tuesday so I couldn’t be there to take photos, however I managed to score a few from AS@U for Day 1 and will try and find some of the powhiri soon as well. I will be around taking photos today though, it’s the Market Day so make sure you come and see all the businesses who are here to offer you special deals and discounts, there will be music, games and more giveaways as in true AS@U style.

Click HERE for the rest of the photos.

Hi!

Well last night I went to the What The Frock 3rd year bachelor of fashion students exhibition. Funny though, I turned up at the right place and thought I went to the wrong place so drove around for a bit then went back to where I started.. lucky no one saw me looking like a fool.

The dresses were all inspired by a range of different things from crows to lollies.. a bit random but a bit awesome at the same time! I didn’t stay to long unfortunately but I was sure to get a good look at everyone’s work and take some snapshots. The exhibition will be open daily until the 28th of May between 10am and 3pm at the Federal Gallery in Wanganui (cnr of Market Place & Taupo Quay) and is worth a look if you are even the slightest bit interested in fashion! for event details please visit the event on our facebook page

Here is a quick photo of Laura Barr, a 3rd year fashion student and her work.

Laura Barr - UCOL Fashion Student

For photos of other fashion students and their works please visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141273&id=46623618038 and if you would like information on the Bachelor of Fashion programme at UCOL you can check that out at http://www.ucol.ac.nz/Programmes/Fashion/1/overview

Hi again,

Well there isn’t much going on around campus these days.. I guess most of you are deep into your assignments and such.

Last night I was at the Youth Guarantee Scholarship Award Ceremony here in Palmerston North, this is the first of hopefully many. I don’t really have much to report, it went well and there was some pretty good catering (I guess you know why I was there aye!?!) but congratulations to all the students who received the scholarships and all the best with your studies here at UCOL!

There are some photos up on our facebook page, be sure to check them out http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135253&id=46623618038

Hey everyone!

So O-Week has come once again, AS@U are out with their free food & Giveaways each day this week! so far it has been pretty interesting. Monday was ‘SLOTH’ so the “Seven Deadly Sins Challenge” was to move down a slip and slide sort of thing and eat gross (and some not so gross) food and whoever got to the end first won, The prize was 2 tickets to the big sounds small town thing. All the free food was demolished in 10 mins but I think it went pretty well overall, if you want to check out the rest of whats going on see http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=297260893532&ref=mf our facebook event info or pick up the latest Crew Magazine.

Click image for more O-Week Day 1 Photos

Day 2 (today) was ‘GLUTTONY’ so the first challenge was to eat a plate of cold spaghetti the fastest without hands and the second challenge was who could get a whole pizza first. The same guy won both challenges (and I bet he got into the free breakfast before hand as well!) what a legend! He won some tickets to small town big sounds, a couple of goody bags, a voucher for powerhouse tattoos and I think a t-shirt as well? probably even more stuff, I don’t know but AS@U seem to be giving away heaps of cool things.

Click image for mroe O-Week Day 2 Photos

I also put up some photos from the Powhiri in our photo gallery but they are terrible shots, I am not a good photographer at the best of times and to make things worse my camera was on some kind of weird setting and I didn’t know.

All of these photos are up on our facebook page as well http://www.facebook.com/ucolnz so if you are on Facebook make sure you are a Fan and if any of your friends are in these photos make sure you tag them also we are giving away a Nintendo Wii on Facebook so make sure you sign up for a chance to win!

I just went and checked out the rehearsals for the show the performing arts students are putting on in just a few weeks. The camera I used isn’t the best so the photos are all pretty poor quality (there are some good shots though). The students will be performing scenes from Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard on December 2nd, 3rd and 4th at 7.30pm in block 5 (the Buckman building) in Palmerston North and the tickets are only $5 at the door.

I have to say what I saw looked pretty good, I will be there to watch the rest on their opening night thats for sure. If you want to see some more snapshots click HERE and ignore some of the spots on the camera, I think there was dust on the lens or something.. either that or some ghosts hanging out in block 5? who knows, I got sick of photoshoping them all out so there are a few in some of the shots. Anyway, make sure you check out the show because it does look like its going to be pretty good!

Last night was the BICT students poster showcase for their final projects.  I went along to check out what was happening and there was quite a good turn out. Some of the projects looked pretty good, most of it was a bit over my head though (had to get some things explained once ot twice).

After 3 years of study I am sure the students are relieved that it’s all finished, judging by what I could see – I am sure they will all do pretty well in the industry. I took a couple of random photos; if you want to check them out HERE.

The photos are up if you want to see them thanks to the photographer Rene Macdonald for taking them, they look amazing!

Jenna Patchett's Work

Check out the photos page HERE for the rest. As I mentioned from the last blog post the shot above is from student Jenna Patchett and I found this to be the most memorable (although everyone was amazing!) there are some shots from the first years and I think some of the second years in the photos page as well, they all did very well and I am glad that I went to see the show. If you have anymore pictures you want me to add in the photos page please send them through to me at j.nockels@ucol.ac.nz

Taken from my phone - dont judge

Last night was the fashion show in Whanganui, it blew my mind! even before it started I was impressed with how they had set it all up and the show itself just got better and better as the night went on. There will be more photos but I haven’t got them yet, I used a photographer this time (so I don’t make a mess like my last lot) however the picture above is taken from my phone, you may have seen it via facebook.

I wish I could remember some of the names of the fashion students but as per usual I am useless when it comes to that sort of stuff, the 3rd years were amazing though.. all of them were! My favorite one was the spitfire somethingarather, again.. don’t remember names, I have the program somewhere so might update it later on. Another cool one was where all the models were wearing these gray and black coats and at the end they took them off to reveal bright coloured dresses which were all pretty cool, I thought that was probably the most memorable one of all just because it was so different.

I’ll look at posting another blog when I get the photos back from the photographer, they will be epic i’m sure! and hopefully I will have some names of the students to go with them. Well done Whanganui students, it was primo!

I thought it was worth a blog post on its own to show.. this!

Steve Leurink – Trend Setter

Thanks to Rene MacDonald for supplying some snapshots of the Fire and Ice Fashion show! there are some great pictures so check them out here