After securing her dream job Ashley Heald says that combining full-time work with part-time external study was well worth the effort.
In 2010 Ashley enrolled in Certificate III in Tourism - Specialising in International Retail Travel Sales which is available externally through the TAFE SA Pt Lincoln Campus.
“I was interested in becoming a travel consultant so I enrolled in a Tourism course at TAFE SA to gain the skills and knowledge required to achieve a career in the travel industry. Now that I have finished my course and gained a job with Harvey World Travel in Mt Gambier I couldn’t be happier”, said Ashley.
Ashley studied the tourism course part-time over 18 months using different learning resources from online to book-based, with options to attend short face to face workshops.
At times working and studying externally became a juggle but TAFE SA Tourism lecturer Renae Blackshaw said that Ashley’s ‘never say die’ attitude helped her achieve her goal.
“Ashley’s determination and persistence was obvious during the course and her commitment to her studies reflected how passionate and dedicated she is about the tourism industry and becoming a bona-fide travel agent”, said Renae.
Although Ashley has only been working in her dream job for three months she has already found that she can directly apply the skills she learnt in her course to her job. “I would recommend this course to anyone interested in working in the tourism industry. The lecturers are supportive and TAFE SA has a good reputation for delivering industry standard training”, Ashley said.
“The TAFE SA Regional Tourism program offers over ten different areas of study for tourism and you can enrol throughout the year. As we offer predominately external learning it can fit into your current workload and by gaining a qualification you have a better standing of gaining that dream job, just like Ashley”, said Renae.