Diploma - A key to open a Career
“The diploma awarded today is an indication of the level of competition achieved by the students. A key to open a career or a qualification for further studies,” said the president of the MCAST board of governors, Paul A. Attard. Mr Attard was speaking at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology graduation ceremonies for 742 students, which started yesterday and are to continue today. The conferring of diplomas is only a loop within a chain since MCAST aims at the holistic education of its students, development of their character and personality, values, attitudes, and skills such as team work, problem solving and how to be creative and entrepreneurial: Attributes which are as important as knowledge, skills and competences, he said.
The young people graduating today would be changing a number of jobs during their career, Mr Attard said, so life long learning was important as was research and experimentation. Today’s graduates need to enter the work force with caution as well as determination and optimism as well as patience to be promoted into higher grades.
Art and Design graduate Stefan De Battista referred to the shift which the Artisan Centre in Targa Gap went through in the eight years during which he followed courses there and especially once it was incorporated within MCAST. “Friends, this is our first day at this new college. We are tomorrow’s artists. Let us together start the walk that will lead us to success in whatever we do,” Mr De Battista said in reappraisal of the speech which the Art and Design Centre’s ex-director, Donald Friggieri had made on the first day at the College.
Mr De Battista explained that along the years, workshops were modernised into state of the art rooms with the latest tools and machinery for the students’ use. The college also gave him the opportunity to participate in a number of EU programmes. In one particular initiative, he was given the chance to work with artists and ceramists for one month in Sicily.
“Such an experience opened new routes in my career,” Mr De Battista said.
In conclusion, he thanked lecturers, technical staff, fellow students with whom he shared good times as well as bad ones and his parents who were of constant support especially when he had thought that he was not able to achieve his personal aims.