President's Blog April 2022

Putting one foot in front of the other…

Hello and welcome dear readers to the President’s blog post for April 2022!

With that, the first half of the Session is officially done! Everyone’s currently holidaying and enjoying some well-earned rest, so I thought of making a slightly longer blog to look back at all the events done over the last month. As usual, here are some miscellaneous points before we get into the main recaps: ASSOC x ASOC (UNSW) events are just around the corner, ASSOC x other MQ societies are also quickly approaching and merchandise is almost ready to be unveiled!

Deloitte x ASSOC Games Night

Games Night returned with its signature mix of ridiculous and hysterical team-based games. Post-it notes, finger-pointing, doodling, mind-games – the Integrate team assumed their inner Dr Frankenstein in concocting this brew of “anything goes”.

I have to thank our Deloitte sponsors for being game enough to participate throughout the night. It’s always interesting to see how our sponsors receive these events and equally surprising when they seem to enjoy the madness as much as any student. I suppose university isn’t that far into the past… As for the Integrate team, they’ll be back with more later in the year.

PwC x ASSOC Bouldering

Born as a passion project by our dear Sports Director/climbing enthusiast, the PwC x ASSOC Bouldering event was a new venture for the society. Naturally, the target audience for the event was slightly skewed, but the attendance was still surprising on the day. All attendees gave it their all, forming friendships through the hardships of climbing. With the passion shown, there’s no doubt this event will make a comeback sometime next year – no harness, no problem.

As always, I have to thank the PwC representatives that came on the day to participate in support of our event; it’s really refreshing to see the more casual side of sponsors. There were plenty of takeaways on the day, but what I’d like to point out is the old trade-off between brains and brawn. Whoever said Actuaries can’t be athletic?

EY Excel Competition

Excel is a lot like coal; it’s prehistoric but nobody wants to move on from it. Hence, it is one of the pivotal software applications for the budding Actuary to master. The EY Excel Competition aimed to help students on that journey through tutelage and ever increasingly difficult challenges – with a little help from EY representatives.

The afternoon was kick-started by our EY reps delivering a presentation on how excel integrates into their daily working lives and the training process for new graduates. After a couple more tips, tricks and industry insights, the workshop-stage of the event commenced.

What is an IF statement? What is VLOOKUP? I’m not a genius at excel formulas, but I do know sum. That was an excel joke – and if you didn’t get it, I’d suggest going to next year’s Excel Competition to find out.

Finally, the attendees were put through a gauntlet of tough excel questions during the competition section, with the winner receiving a cash prize equivalent to 80% of the IT team’s budget (meagre as it is… but if you would like to bolster our funding, please contact our EVP at kai.lavers@mqassoc.com)!

Orientation Camp

Over the past two years, being a younger student at Macquarie has been quite difficult. I’m sure we can all agree that the many friendships formed through computer screens pale in comparison to the F2F university experience. As such, the ASSOC Orientation Camp was born.

Mainly aimed at first and second years, the camp was a mishmash of urban challenge, scavenger hunt, group-bonding activities over two days in the heart of the city. There was only one goal: providing the opportunity for younger years to form the integral friendship groups that so defines the elusive “university experience”.

I need to give a massive thanks to the team for getting this new event off the ground in such an organised manner. As for the attendees, I didn’t stick around the entire time to avoid being the boomer in the room, so I can’t tell you exactly how they got along. But I think the photos speak for themselves… thanks for coming!

Future Events?

You’ll have to stay tuned to our socials for information on upcoming events but here’s a little sneak peek at the next month:

Event	Timeframe
ASAxASSOCxWEB Sports Day	Sunday 24th April
Cabinet-Committee Social Afternoon	Week 9
ASOCxASSOC Basketball	Week 10/11
Mock Interviews	Week 12

I’ll see you back here in May for the next post. Until next time!