Jennifer Lane and Joe Milazzo

Jennifer Lane and Joe Milazzo

It's easy for Canberra couple Jennifer Lane and Joe Milazzo to remember the day they officially started dating at UNE. It's the same day they choose to marry - 10 October.

"Joe was out on the town celebrating his graduation in 2008 and I had been at a mate's 21st birthday party," Jennifer recalls. "We both ended up at Armidale's Wicklow Hotel and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I had been waiting for him to officially ask me out for nine months!"

The pair first met in a German 101 class. Joe was wrapping up his Bachelor of Languages and, three years his junior, Jennifer was just starting her Bachelor of Languages and International Business studies.

They soon began mixing in the same social circles - Jennifer was residing at Robb College and they had a mutual friend in the Robb College president at the time, Simon Maloney - but began seeing a little more of each other after Jennifer invited Joe to the college's annual North Court Luncheon.

"It was great, except Jenny forgot to tell me it was a black-tie event and I turned up in a normal grey suit," Joe says.

In the years that followed, Joe went on to complete a Graduate Certificate and Diploma in Management, then a Masters of Business Administration. He now works as a consultant project manager for various Federal Government departments and agencies, and Jennifer is a development manager for the University of New South Wales' Canberra faculty.

Both took their first jobs at UNE - Joe in Human Resources and Jennifer with the Future Students team. They even shared an office for a time, when they later worked together in the Alumni team. "It was like immersion therapy for a couple, and was probably very good for our relationship, as it turns out," says Jennifer.

The experiences of studying and working at UNE have had other enduring benefits, too.

"I loved my studies at UNE, and I loved doing the schools liaison job because I got to talk about what a great time I had at UNE," Jennifer says. "Living at college, and having a great community around me, made the moving away from home much easier, and supported me to step outside my comfort zone. The things I learnt around relationship management  while working in the Future Students team I still use today."

The quality of the UNE language education also left a lasting impression.

"We had the same lecturers for Italian, and my mother also did Italian through UNE, back in the day, and had the same lecturers we did," Joe says. "One of the lecturers would occasionally invite us out for coffee and we would have little Italian language group dates. The lecturers were always very approachable, and that continued throughout my postgraduate studies. I learnt a lot at UNE about the power of networking."

"The small class sizes at UNE meant that you never felt like a number," says Jennifer. " It was a supportive and safe environment and I have only ever worked in universities since, because I had such a great experience at UNE. It remains one of my favourite work environments."

Joe says his various paid UNE roles set him up well to deal with people from all walks of life in business. "At UNE I presented to the Vice-Chancellor and senior executives and that gave me a great deal of confidence," he says. "I developed strong interpersonal skills that enabled me to talk to anyone about anything. It also taught me the importance of being inclusive in my work."

The friendships the pair formed while at UNE, during local race days, college events and various parties, have also endured. "My close group of girlfriends, all of them I met at UNE," says Jennifer. "Your college friends see you at your best and your worst, and you form friendships that feel like family. Armidale was such a great town to make friends in."

"It wasn't six degrees of separation in Armidale, in many cases, but maybe one-and-a-half," adds Joe.