Higher education oracle and real life Aquaman: meet Burim
It's safe to say our Portfolio Strategy Lead brings more than an impressive CV to the table—although he's got that too! Passionate, experienced and a man of many talents, find out what Burim's life outside the office walls (and under the sea) looks like and what career and life wisdom he has to share.
Tell us your name, your role at Open Universities Australia and how long you’ve worked here?
My current role is Portfolio Strategy Lead and I’ve been in this role since early 2020. My previous role here back in 2018 was University Engagement Manager. So that puts me at six and a half years at Open Universities Australia (OUA).Tell us about your career pathway—what led you here and why?
Over 90% of my career is in education, mainly higher education. Since uni graduation I did a short stint in banking and then publishing. But since 2004 I have been in various positions in vocational and higher education from international student recruitment, marketing, admission, alumni, business development, domestic student recruitment, program admin, and program design at one private college and three different universities.
When the role came up at OUA I thought it would be interesting to move into a non-university environment (I also used to work very closely with OUA when I was at RMIT) and I wasn’t wrong!
Tell us about your role—what do you do every day to transform lives through education? Has your role evolved over the years?
In my current role, I raise awareness, provide strategic and tactical advice and enhance understanding of the OUA portfolio—what students are looking for, market trends, selling points of various programs, new opportunities in the market or new opportunities to design new programs—among OUA teams and our university partners.
Each year I also coordinate a little project called catalogue launch (AKA rollover, catalogue rollover, handbook publication and Burim’s baby). This is when we republish/refresh our entire portfolio from one year to the next with updated content and pricing. The nature of the project itself is actually very simple but it involves a lot of moving parts, internally and externally. My job is to make sure that things are moving as they should and we go live as planned, hopefully without any major hiccups.
What personal strengths and abilities do you bring to your role?
I’d like to think that my experience and understanding of the industry turn me into an oracle of higher education!
What is your favourite part of your role and/or your favourite thing about working at Open Universities Australia?
Flexibility! Compared to universities we are small, nimble and flexible.
- We can make things happen fast
- We can pivot fast
- Our student management system is way more flexible than most universities (not perfect, but flexible!)
- Most of our internal processes are also flexible
What is your proudest moment or career highlight during your time at Open Universities Australia?
Oh there are quite a few, but here are two that come to mind:
- I coordinated and survived six catalogue launches. The project is now a lot more streamlined than it used to be—credit to dozens of OUAers and our desire to keep making things better.
- Being part of the super rapid portfolio growth—we went from less than 200 programs from 12 universities in 2018 to, at its peak, over 1100 programs from 27 universities.
What's the best piece of career advice you've been given?
Work to live, don’t live to work!
What advice would you give to future students thinking about taking the leap into online study?
Education is an expensive investment in yourself so treat it accordingly. It’s not just money but also time and effort so make sure that you at least have a rough plan that allows you to get the most out of it before you embark on the journey.
Tell us a bit about what you do when you’re not working behind the scenes at Open Universities Australia—any passions or hobbies? And how does this make you a better OUAer?
Oh geez, I thought you’d never ask! Where do I begin? Okay, I’ll address the last part of the question first.
As I mentioned earlier, I work to live so these passions and hobbies get me out of bed to go to work and try to do my best so I can keep my job, earn money and enjoy my life! I have lots of hobbies! These include travelling, camping, hiking, mountain biking, road biking, surfing, scuba diving, underwater photography, stand-up paddle boarding and sailing.
So basically when I’m not working—and if the weather is good—then I’m always out and about, mostly on and under water. And when the weather is bad, I usually spend my weekend editing my underwater photos and videos.
How has working at Open Universities Australia changed your perspective on online study or influenced your life outside of work?
Online education wasn’t exactly new to me when I started at OUA. I’ve been working in this space a good 10 years before I joined. But what never stops to amaze me is how fast technology has evolved. And it’s not just around online teaching and curriculum but everything else around it like processes, systems and tools as well. I’ve been in the industry for so long to see some incredible adoptions of new tech, from the emergence of Facebook to the recent ChatGPT.
In its early days I saw students sharing exam questions with their classmates, or I once caught a student who had her exam postponed due to illness but she was in fact on holiday in Thailand and posted her photos on Facebook (!). I think it’s really cool to be able to witness the rapid change over the years and see how the industry evolved with it. For sure, sometimes it drives you crazy and really messes with the system. But as with all new tech it’s here to stay, so you either adapt and embrace it or you’re extinct!
Finally, tell us something we don't know about you?
It’s probably not really a surprise to tell you that my favourite hobby at the moment is underwater macro photography. There are so many super tiny creatures underwater, from a hermit crap the size of a golf ball, to a nudibranch (sea slug) as small as a grain of sand, or a 5mm long pigmy seahorse.
I guess the other reason I love to photograph these guys is not only because they are beautiful and have a fascinating life but also because it’s super challenging—try holding a 3kg camera while bobbling up and down and side to side. You really have to stay still and focus on your super tiny subject in front of your lens that you can barely see with your own eyes.
If you want to explore more about underwater photography, here’s a link to an article I wrote last year. And here’s some of my video content on YouTube.
Oh yeah, I have a YouTube channel! Nothing big or popular but I've gotta offload those videos and photos I took somewhere, so why not dump them on the internet, right?
