This is a guest blog by Jess Burton, MSc Marketing Management (Digital) student at BU. Jess shares insight about her course and her reasons for choosing to continue to study at BU for her Master’s degree.

Bournemouth University is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business (AACSB), and not all universities have this, this was an important factor for me staying at BU as I wanted to study at a university that was well accredited.

Additionally, I found the course to be more creative than other business schools in the South of England which was the main reason for deciding to stay at BU for my postgraduate.

However, I also knew that I would be working with real businesses meaning I would be making an impact. Besides, I love the area and would be happy living here for longer.

I started my course in January 2021 and my first semester units were Marketing Communications & Brand Management, Digital Marketing and Sustainability & Social Marketing.

Digital Marketing is what I want to go into so this is the unit I was most looking forward to and could see would 100% benefit me. The assignment was two separate ones, one of them being a campaign. I enjoyed doing this instead of writing an essay as it was more creative. Dr Elvira Bolat was very helpful during this and gave a lot of feedback.

Sustainability & Social Marketing are interesting topics and makes you think about things in a lot more detail, the questions I had from the first week seemed to be endless! I also liked that one of the assignments was a poster as this allows a little more creativity.

Jess’s marketing campaign for Real Techniques

Finally, I like the structure of the Marketing Communications & Brand Management unit because every other week I was working with a real brand on their marketing. This unit was the one that made me more prepared for the future and I developed a lot of skills which I need. One of these skills was presenting. I normally avoid this and am extremely nervous before presenting. However, after spending so much time in this unit and having to do so frequently, I have found that I have improved and am no longer as nervous.

Also, this assignment partially involved using bookzy, which is a platform that I had not previously heard of. Therefore, I learnt how to use this platform and all the different elements of it to be able to produce something creative. This is useful because within a marketing job I will not always be using platforms that I am comfortable with and will need to explore it within a short period of time.

After completing all the units, you complete a dissertation, and then you can choose to do a placement. I personally have experience within Marketing and so opted not to do the placement. However, I gained a lot from doing one during my undergraduate degree and would 100% recommend this to someone who doesn’t have much experience in marketing.

Jess with friends after The Colour Run

If you’re thinking of doing a masters in MSc Marketing Management and want a creative course, then I would definitely recommend this course at BU. My advice would be to start the assignments early so you don’t get overly stressed out towards deadlines and to enjoy your time in Bournemouth and all it offers because your masters will fly by.