Graduate gets great reception

Hotel senior receptionist and former Queenstown Resort College Diploma of Hospitality Management student Andrew McCathie (19) will be part of the first group to graduate from the college.

When Andrew McCathie joins the first group of Diploma of Hospitality Management students to graduate from the Queenstown Resort College (QRC) this Saturday, he will have taken the first major step towards his ultimate goal of running his own business.

Mr McCathie (19) joined the second intake of students at the college in July 2006 to embark on the 18-month course. The first and second-intake students are graduating together.

During his training, he gained the required work experience for the course as a porter at the Copthorne Hotel in Queenstown and at a Mt Ruapehu hotel, before gaining full-time work as senior receptionist at the Copthorne on completion of his diploma.

Mr McCathie will finish his Queenstown hotel job at the end of this week and return to his hometown, Cambridge.

There, he plans to gain further hotel experience, before looking at studying for another year for a degree at the International College of Management in Sydney or the Cesar Ritz College in Switzerland.

‘‘I want to see how useful the diploma is first,'' Mr McCathie said. ‘‘To see how far that's going to take me.''

He had ‘‘thoroughly enjoyed'' the QRC diploma, although it had been ‘‘really hard work and really busy''.

One of the highlights of the course had been meeting some ‘‘really cool'' people among the small group of students who had passed through the college with him.

‘‘You could almost call it a family environment . . . that was a really good aspect of it.

‘‘It's not like a university with 4000 students.''

Mr McCathie was looking forward to catching up at the graduation this weekend with his classmates, many of whom would be returning to Queenstown especially for the ceremony from jobs further afield.

‘‘It will be great to see a lot of faces I haven't seen for a while.''

He said the significance of belonging to the first group of students to graduate from the college - which opened in March 2006 - had not yet sunk in.

‘‘I think that's going to mean a lot more down the track for me, being the first group through. With the alumni programme they're starting up, I'm sure there will be a lot of reunions in the future.''

Now, Mr McCathie's main aim for his future was to use the skills learnt from his QRC management papers and start his own hospitality business, rather than working for someone else.