Institute News Main Headline

IFTM graduates ready to take on the world

中文摘要 / Summary in Chinese

The latest group of IFTM graduates has just celebrated at the Institute’s 2020 Graduation Ceremony their educational feat. The event was held on 23 October at the Tap Seac Multisport Pavilion. This year’s ceremony took place later than usual, as precautions related to the COVID-19 pandemic led the Institute’s management to postpone the event.

Linda Jiang Xinyi was one of the 399 IFTM graduates awarded either a bachelor’s degree or a diploma in academic year 2019/2020. She completed the programme leading to a Bachelor’s Degree in Heritage Management.

“I had never lived outside my parents’ home until I came to study at IFTM,” says Linda, from Mainland China. “It was a great opportunity for me to become more independent. I think I did succeed in taking care of myself.”

Linda is now in Europe: she has joined a master’s degree programme in Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Louvain, in Belgium.

She says one of her best memories from her time as a student at IFTM is working on group projects. “These projects took a long time to conclude. However, once we were able to get a satisfying outcome, we felt really happy,” Linda recalls.

Joseph Kuok Weng I is a proud holder of a fresh Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism Event Management from IFTM. He says that, when enrolling at the Institute, he had set a personal goal of expanding his horizons while studying at IFTM. “I wanted to see a different ‘me’ after 4 years, and I think I did achieve it.”

Joseph says IFTM helped sharpen his ability to study independently. He also enjoyed group projects: “Very often, we had meetings after classes, to prepare the projects, and we needed to discuss things until very late at night,” Joseph says. “At the end of each project, once we completed it, we would all feel satisfied.”

Lucy Wang Luyang delivered a speech on behalf of the fresh graduates during the graduation ceremony. She also had set clear targets for herself academically when she entered IFTM’s Tourism Business Management Bachelor’s Degree Programme, 4 years ago. “My goals were to study hard, get good results and become one of the best graduates.”

As a person coming from Mainland China, she states IFTM opened for her the doors to the world. “I met a lot of students from different places and joined different field trips overseas.”

Lucy made the best of the exchange opportunities available at the Institute, taking part in summer school programmes that took her to the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. “This gave me not only additional tourism-related knowledge, but I was also able to learn more about the cultural background of these countries. These were meaningful moments for me.”

Never too late to learn

IFTM offers not only daytime programmes. The range of evening bachelor degree programmes available and the flexibility such programmes offer make the Institute an attractive choice for Macao-based professionals wanting to return to study. Peggy Kong Wai Peng fits the description: the civil servant graduated in academic year 2019/2020 from the Tourism Retail and Marketing Management Evening Programme of the Institute.

Peggy already had a bachelor’s degree – in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture – prior to enrolling to IFTM. “As I am sometimes involved in organising events in my current job, I thought it would be useful if I could supplement my knowledge in the area,” she says. “So, I applied for IFTM.”

Working in a full-time job during the daytime and studying in the evening was challenging, but Peggy says she was able to cope with it. “Obtaining knowledge and practical experience in areas such as tourism, event planning and marketing was my main goal,” she states.

The IFTM Hotel Management Evening Programme allowed Emily Chao Teng to complete a long-standing dream: to get a bachelor’s degree and taste life as a higher education student. “I wanted to learn more, to experience university life and to see the world,” says the fresh graduate. “IFTM was my first option for that.”

Prior to enrolling in the Institute, Emily had been working in the gaming industry for about 10 years. After 3 years of balancing work and study commitments, she left her job so she could take up the opportunity to go on exchange through IFTM. Emily eventually completed student exchanges in Austria and Sweden, and an internship at a hotel in New Zealand. “These were valuable opportunities. I could not have had them without being a student,” she says.

In these difficult times of COVID-19, IFTM’s management hopes fresh graduates can put their professional knowledge into practice, in order to help revamp the tourism industry and support the adoption of innovative technology to optimise management and operational models and thereby assist tourism businesses to adapt better to a post-pandemic world.

President’s Corner

A special place

IFTM’s unique positioning means students have access to a deep pool of exclusive opportunities, including exchange and internship programmes outside Macao, allowing them to be exposed to new ideas, and to broaden their horizons. Read More