College life is rich with opportunities to create friendships and develop interests beyond just passing a class. Some students do just attend classes, but for those who participate in events outside class, the Ultimo campus is full of new experiences.

AV Club

AV Club is run by Alex Taleski and provides extra learning resources for Video and Film students. The club invites industry professionals to demonstrate techniques and equipment in a relaxed environment throughout each trimester. The club is all about collaborative development of skills and ideas and is a great way to network with professionals as well as learn from them.

Billy Blue College of Design is at Torrens University in Broadway, Sydney
AV Club at Billy Blue Ultimo campus
AV Club is like a lounge for audiovisual development. Here videographer Sarah Williamson is demonstrating her workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro for club members.

Breakout Area

At Billy Blue Ultimo campus the student lounge is not some hidden away place, instead it is a vibrant space to relax located in the middle of the action near the library, food, reception, and Success Coaches. The chairs and sofas are comfy and the company is friendly. Breakout of stress, and enjoy the moment.

Design students relaxing in the breakout area of Torrens University Billy Blue Ultimo campus
Unwinding between classes, design students at the Billy Blue Ultimo campus of Torrens University.
Breakout Area at Billy Blue College of Desgn at Torrens University, Ultimo campus.
Breakout area at Billy Blue College of Design at Torrens University Ultimo campus.

Tuckshop

Food and coffee power the student life. In the Breakout Zone is a delightful cafe appropriately called The Tuckshop. Tuckshops have been a part of the Australian education environment for a hundred years and the tradition lives on at the Ultimo campus.

Tuckshop cafe at Torrens U Ultimo campus
Coffee has traditionally powered a student’s life and the Billy Blue Tuckshop makes great coffee.

Adventures in Autodesk Maya

Billy Blue College of Design has some wonderful lecturers who are passionate about their classes and students. Max Baron teaches 3D animation. He is the superman of Autodesk Maya and is very patient as we struggle with learning the complex world of Maya. According to Max he is there to dispell the myth that computers make art “It’s the people behind the computers who do it. I like to share the passion for the art. This is an artform just like any other and so connecting with students is a process of connecting with ideas.”

Portrait of Max Baron
The journey to Maya Nirvana starts with Max.

“Seeing ideas taking new directions in student art is exciting and cool. If I see someone who is struggling suddenly get it, it is like seeing a butterfly unfurl from a cocoon. I provide the structure and discipline that facilitates the learning, or more correctly, I provide the structure for the student to discipline themself for self discovery. Emotionally the work is just you, and I am trying to enable the students to be their best artist selves.”

Max Baron

First Aid

The Ultimo campus has its own Florence Nightingale, but her name is Holly. I found this out one day when hurrying to class. I was a little late and moving faster than I should have been, and going down the hill in Broadway I tripped and did a good impression of someone trying to smooth out the pavement with my head. I lost quite a bit of skin from my forehead. I am the sort of guy who prefers no fuss, but Holly sought me out and treated my injuries despite my protests that I was all right.

Injury after falling over going to college.
It seems that stone is the winner when falling face first into the pavement. It hurt, but Holly cleaned it up and made certain the injuries did not extend beyond some broken skin.
Portrait of Holly
Holly is the first-aid superwoman at the Ultimo Design Campus.

Custodian of the Books

Terry is passionate about books. He is the librarian and presides over the 250,000 books available to the students at the Ultimo Design Campus. Of course most of them have been digitalized and as someone who loves paper and the tactile sensation of traditional books he has mixed feelings about that, but as he says “you have to move with the times, and students now want books that they can move on and off their computers. Ultimately it is what the book says that is most important, rather than the format it is in.”

Portrait of librarian Terry.
Terry, the man who loves books.

“My love of books first began when I went on holidays with my family as a kid, and my mom read The Magician’s Nephew. We got under this old blanket on the sofa and she read that to me, and I remember being totally amazed the way a book could spark the imagination. It is just words on a page, but in that format it is somehow just magical.”

Terry
Library at the Ultimo Design Campus
The library is always full of groups of design students studying and working on homework.

“It is always a thrill when a student comes up and asks for a specific piece of information and I can say – look, this is how we can look it up, and we can go search the catalog, we can build a search strategy, and you can see in their eyes them getting more confident with finding more information for themselves, and that is always wonderful to see.”

Terry
Library study room at Billy Blue College of Design
Being a design campus the study room computers in the library have design, graphics, and animation software installed and students are just as likely to be drawing and painting as to be researching design theory and history. In this case the student is creating a book illustration in Adobe Illustrator. A feature of the study room is the ability to use large Cintiq tablets for more complex design artworks.