Reflecting on my university experience

I recently read an article on Marketing Week questioning whether marketing experts really need a degree in marketing. It's an interesting question - and I'm sure the debate could go on for hours and hours with many pros and cons for each side. However the article did make me reflect on my time at university and how my degree has paved the way for me.

I studied Advertising and Marketing Communications, intrigued by the world of advertising and eager to find out more. Within the first year I knew that advertising wasn't for me and started considering the world of marketing more and more. During my second year of university I was able to choose between a 6 week advertising placement or a year-long marketing placement, due to commence that summer. You can probably guess what one I chose. I worked as a Marketing Assistant for an organisation in the higher education sector, where I got to put my theoretical knowledge into practice and helped to implement marketing campaigns, undertake market research, dabble at design, practice my copy writing skills, and many other tasks.

In my final year at university I also worked as a brand ambassador for a student travel organisation. As part of my role I implemented social media campaigns, was responsible for maintaining a brand presence around the university and helped to boost the brand reputation. Both roles enabled me to experience various aspects within marketing, and enabled me to identify what areas I really enjoyed and some areas that I wasn't as keen on.

Both placements have undoubtedly shaped my career path - and more importantly I wouldn't have been considered for either placement if my degree wasn't of a marketing discipline. The experience I received from these placements helped to enrich my CV - highlighting transferable skills that I had gained such as organisational skills, presentation skills, communication skills and the ability to make it through a working week and return the following Monday!

To anyone starting their university journey I would highly recommend that you seek out the opportunity to gain work experience, whether this be through a placement year or an internship. If you feel that you don't have enough time for such a commitment why not take a look at some of the other activities that we offer at Beds - from volunteering opportunities, to writing for our student magazine, to joining a club or society - there's plenty of options available to fit around your schedule and help to ensure that you get more than a degree.

More than a degree

Over the next couple of days hundreds of UoB students will be graduating from university officially, with many leaving the world of university behind and stepping into the world of employment. Kylie and I will be going to meet some of the graduates and interview them about their UoB experience. There's always such a buzz at the graduations and I can't help but remember my own (although I still can't believe mine was four years ago this year!!).

With the job market the way it stands currently, it's so important that graduates can differentiate themselves from other graduates, whether this be with an internship, volunteering, or simply being a member of a club or society. As mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, I've been working on a section of the website called more than a degree, which highlights many of the co-curricular and extra-curricular activities available at Beds. The pages highlight the various ways students can get involved at the university, whether this be writing for the SU's magazine, taking part in the Go Global programme, or learning a language, as well as many other opportunities.

As part of this project I've had the opportunity to meet with some of our students and graduates that have already benefited from taking part in some of these amazing opportunities. Keep your eyes peeled on our website, and across our social media accounts for more information!

What's great about the more than a degree project is that it is still expanding. There's so many fantastic things happening at the university that I'm still learning about all of the different opportunities myself! If you run, or know, of any activity that isn't currently listed on the more than a degree pages please let me know.

Culture - a Luton thing?

Funny things have happened on campus over the last few weeks. Stands, pagodas, stalls, marquees, student ambassadors and freshers’ angels have sprouted where before, there was a distinct lack of stands, pagodas, stalls, marquees, student ambassadors or freshers’ angels. The last week of September and first week of October saw the beginning of the new academic year and soaring campus energy levels which have since been ever so slightly jaded by a downturn in the weather and an upturn in beach parties and other luridly themed student nights.

A warm welcome should continue to be extended, not only to the University of Bedfordshire, but also to Luton. Or Bedford. Or Milton Keynes, or Aylesbury, Barnfield, Arthur Mellows, Majan or wherever else University students are. Wherever you’re studying, welcome.

Those arriving at Luton – our biggest campus – may be wondering what they’ve let themselves in for. Yes, we have state of the art buildings, but Luton – the town - often makes the news for the wrong reasons and has been the butt of many stand ups sitcoms, adverts and novelty hit parade smashes. Like this. Or this. The town has been an easy target over the years, but its folk always bounce back.

Luton's Bear Jazz and Blues club

From a student’s point of view, part of Luton’s appeal may be that it’s on London’s doorstep with fast trains linking town to capital in less than half an hour. That’s less than half an hour assuming there are no weekend engineering works or staff shortages and assuming, too, that travel is undertaken in a southerly direction. It would take a deluded or strange fellow to suggest Luton is London’s equal, but outside the Uni, the town boasts a vibrant jazz club, art centre, as well as a range of clubs, museums, galleries, sport and – according to a few  – “by far the greatest (football) team the world has ever seen”. Gems may be hard to uncover, but for precisely this reason, they’re more rewarding when you do find them.

Here are a few choice facts about Luton you may or may not be familiar with and which you might want to bandy about if and when the need arises:

•  The aforementioned Luton Town was the first club in the South of England to turn fully professional in 1891;
•  Peripatetic Polish literary giant Joseph Conrad lived, for a while, just outside Luton (in a building which still stands and is visible from the southern side of the airport runway);
• Luton Hoo is hugely popular as a film location and has been used in films and programmes including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Call the Midwife, War Horse, Gosford Park and A Shot in the Dark (the last of which features cinema’s greatest Billiards scene ever);
• When it was completed in the early 1970s, The Mall was – very briefly – the largest covered shopping centre in Europe;

  

  The Mall in the 1970s looking like The Mall in 2015

• Music and musical acts associated with Luton include flute wielding folk rockers Jethro Tull, goth punk pioneers UK Decay and best-forgotten potato-like 80s soul pop sensation Paul Young;
• Luton has had more than one castle built within the town's limits in the Middle Ages, with the silver line on the pavement running into the main entrance of the Campus Centre showing where the moat of one of these castles ran;
• The M1 was officially “inaugurated” in Luton in 1953;
• Luton's town hall was built in the 1930s after the original structure was burned down in the Peace Day Riots of 1919.

So, for all those who run Luton down; no, we don’t have Bedford’s history, Milton Keynes; shopping, St Albans’ money or those cosy, quaint English Chiltern village greens and whatnot. That said, they’re all pretty close, and for the curious and those looking for opportunity and a chance to carve a niche, make a mark and all that good stuff, Luton really isn’t such a bad prospect.