Testimonials from Students

“I can tell you what you get when you take six relative strangers; stick them in a room together for a week and ask them to solve a problem. You get ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings thrown about. You get laughs and arguments and you find out ways how to make it work out in the end. But the thing that I will miss the most, the most important that comes out of being stuck with a bunch of strangers is that they stop becoming strangers and turn into your friends who create memories that you will treasure forever. “

By Dominiek - Year 10 Student - Adelaide

Aaron said “An integral part of my experience from Mindshop was being exposed to a professional working environment. By not only watching but participating in this setting I gained a first hand knowledge of how to conduct myself in many situations. Since then I’ve had multiple environments when I’ve drawn on some of the skills I gained whether that be drafting letters or speaking in a formal setting. The benefits I got from the Mindshop program were immense and I would recommend it highly to anyone, I know personally I found it more beneficial than my week on work experience.”

By Aaron – Year 11 Student – Ballarat

Rebecca wrote to her Mindshop Facilitators Mark and Peter to thank them. “ I wanted to thank you both for all your efforts, encouragement and support during the week and the many valuable ideas and mechanisms you taught me to not only get me through school but more so through life. Working as a team through the problem Toyota gave us, provided me with confidence and a higher level of self-esteem. This program was extremely valuable and I can only hope that one day in the future that my value to others or VTO can be as admirable as yours was to me.”

By Rebecca – Year 10 Student – Sydney

Testimonials from a School

As a teacher with many years involvement in Work Experience programmes, I find that the Mindshop approach allows students and employers to engage in the experience in a manner that is rarely possible in most one-week placements. Because it aims to immerse the students in a real problem which the employer has found challenging to his organization, it has the potential to avoid the ‘pretend’ element that so often lessens the impact of Work Experience. The students are seen as real partners with a valued role to play. The results of their activity have the potential to be of far reaching and long lasting benefit to the business or organization with which they work.

By John Brick - Damascus College, Ballarat

Testimonials from Facilitators

“Our future is in fine hands if these young people are anything to judge by. They handled themselves very well, showed courage, resolve, multiple intelligences and good humour. The host organization was extremely impressed and the parents were beaming ......... and just quietly, Mike and I were pretty damned proud of them too!”

By Ron Jungalwalla – Mindshop Facilitator

“They came up with both a short and long term solution. They designed a new process and recording system to operate until the hospital installed the barcode technology. The icing on the cake was how they calculated the cost of the Now (waste) and extrapolated this across the range of stock to come up with significant savings (to help pay for the barcode system). The Where. They had some good slides on this. They also had time to teach me a few things that my laptop can do that I was unaware of!! The CEO was not only delighted with the recommendations but they could not believe the depth the group went into (visiting other hospitals, getting quotes on barcode systems and presenting a financial case at the end on how much the present system was costing the hospital Vs the investment in their proposal). They also commented on the professional manner in which they conducted themselves during the week. The comment from the school was "this is the best I have ever seen". They were obviously unaware of the potential of their students! They wanted them to do it all again at school, make a video and use this to motivate the other students.”

By Robert Pridham – Mindshop Facilitator

Testimonial by Michael Burke - Mindshop Facilitator > CLICK HERE

Testimonials from Hosts

“When I was approached to host a Mindshop Excellence program I wondered, how could a group of 16 year old students assist a group of experienced people at Laminex solve problems – well I was wrong. We as a company aspire to be safe, flexible and efficient but as the program has been described, the tools and techniques enabled the students to come up with potential solutions that have made us aware of innovative ways that will help us to become safe, flexible and efficient which is very much our mission. So we certainly saw behaviour along the lines of teamwork, independence and problem solving. They were very persistent in what they did and they presented themselves very well in their diligence. We’ll be very keen to take part in other Mindshop Excellence programs in the future.”

By Leigh Facey HR and OH&S Adviser from Laminex – Ballarat

“Excellence offers students the opportunity to be part of a large organisation and discover first-hand the types of processes they need to go through in order to establish and solve problems. It has been great watching these students work and seeing such a boost in their confidence.”

By TAFE youth participation coordinator – Jennie Myers – Wodonga

“My initial response to supervising work experience students was less than enthusiastic. I imagined myself having to baby-sit four Year 10 students while tyring to keep up with my work load” Scott said. He couldn’t have been more wrong. “I was amazed, not only did I not have to baby-sit them, but in a week they have solved one of the more difficult tasks on my schedule.”

By Altona Refinery OIMS Coordinator – Scott Vildovas

Toyota Australia General Manager Organisational Development, Glenn Morrow, praised the students that participated in a Mindshop Excellence program at the Toyota Altona North plant and said they provided valuable recommendations that senior management would strongly consider. Mr Morrow said “the business and practical skills the students learnt during the week were very evident as they provided us with some very innovative solutions that will be put to our management at the plant. The Mindshop program is a wonderful opportunity to promote careers in the manufacturing sector and it enables companies like Toyota to facilitate learning processes that will last these students a lifetime”

By Glenn Morrow - Toyota Australia General Manager Organisational Development