I graduated in 2014 with an Honours degree in Marketing with Events Management and boyyy, I clearly remember saying on my graduation day that I will NEVER go back to education, like ever *taylor swift voice*.
A year and an internship later, I never though that I'd be sitting at home on my laptop looking up different postgraduate courses that I could undertake. More precisely, I was looking for a course I could do-part time (because a girls gotta work, too).
In August 2015 I applied for a part-time course in Cosmetics Branding and Promotions at Birmingham City University. Literally, the course outline just highlighted what I really wanted to do in life and everything else was just YES. I applied, and shortly I got an e-mail confirming that I had been offered a place and a month later, I began my course.
Enough with the jibber jabber though. Since it seems as though September is the start of a new term, I'm sure some of you may be looking to apply for a Post-graduate degree. I hope this post helps you in some way and i'm hoping that it helps me reflect, too! So here's a little post on what I learnt during my first year of my Masters Degree.
1. Your lecturers are basically your friends. THIS I needed to get the hang of for-sure. After being in education for 18 years of your life, it's only natural for you to expect that your lecturers are going to be mean and put you under pressure, but if anything my lecturer's consistently keep my grounded and they actually treat me like an adult. As long as you don't make their job difficult by telling them your every life problem and you hand in your work on time - then seriously, they're cool people and don't be afraid to ask them for their opinion.
2. You're in control. There's project briefs, but... not like the ones you used to get. These are on a whole new level of NOTHING-NESS (yes i'm doing my MA and used an non-existent word). The brief will tell you what they expect, but you can do whatever you want as long as it relates to your programme of study.
3. You need to be very organised. I know that in life, they tell you to be organised with everything that you do but with part-time study you really have to organise your time well. You must schedule everything down to the T, including work schedules, project deadlines, you time - (fyi, the most important) meetings with your lecturer and of course, lectures you wish to attend... which brings me to my next point...
4. You attend the lectures that you think are relevant to you. The great thing about a masters is that most of it is self-taught. If a lecture doesn't seem relevant to you then you don't have to attend. Of course, don't take advantage of that fact and skip every single one. You'd be surprised what you can learn, and also who you could be inspired by.
5. Prioritizing can get difficult. Again, you just need to be organised for this one. I love my job and I easily get wrapped up in it - also with both my job and my education being part-time, it can be difficult to sometimes fit in your personal life because on some weeks, I have all the free-time in the world and some weeks can get super busy with deadlines.
6. You gain a lot of long-distance friends. This may not apply to everyone. Everyone I met was so lovely. I forgot to mention that I'm the only one doing my course so whilst everyone else was specifying in fashion, I was doing cosmetics meaning that sometimes it was difficult to relate. Also, it's just me and one other girl doing the course part-time and most of the people I made friends with have now gone back home which for most was different parts of the world.
7. Note down everything. every idea, every bit of inspo, article, everything.
8. Schedule a meeting with your course leader at least once a month... Just to make sure that everything that you're doing is what they expect from you. This really helps the stress-levels go down because they either reassure you everything is fine or they help point you in the direction you need to be going by giving you advice in more of a friend type of way!
9. Spend as much time at the library/uni as you can... because you won't be timetabled to be in as often. The more you're in and surrounded by other students the more it'll motivate you to do your own.
10. Just enjoy it... I know this is such a cliche but you really do need to enjoy it or else it's pointless. Make sure you pick a course that is 100% right for you and you should have no problem with this.
(woah that was a long post... sorry!)
Please feel free to ask me any questions :)
Enough with the jibber jabber though. Since it seems as though September is the start of a new term, I'm sure some of you may be looking to apply for a Post-graduate degree. I hope this post helps you in some way and i'm hoping that it helps me reflect, too! So here's a little post on what I learnt during my first year of my Masters Degree.
1. Your lecturers are basically your friends. THIS I needed to get the hang of for-sure. After being in education for 18 years of your life, it's only natural for you to expect that your lecturers are going to be mean and put you under pressure, but if anything my lecturer's consistently keep my grounded and they actually treat me like an adult. As long as you don't make their job difficult by telling them your every life problem and you hand in your work on time - then seriously, they're cool people and don't be afraid to ask them for their opinion.
2. You're in control. There's project briefs, but... not like the ones you used to get. These are on a whole new level of NOTHING-NESS (yes i'm doing my MA and used an non-existent word). The brief will tell you what they expect, but you can do whatever you want as long as it relates to your programme of study.
3. You need to be very organised. I know that in life, they tell you to be organised with everything that you do but with part-time study you really have to organise your time well. You must schedule everything down to the T, including work schedules, project deadlines, you time - (fyi, the most important) meetings with your lecturer and of course, lectures you wish to attend... which brings me to my next point...
4. You attend the lectures that you think are relevant to you. The great thing about a masters is that most of it is self-taught. If a lecture doesn't seem relevant to you then you don't have to attend. Of course, don't take advantage of that fact and skip every single one. You'd be surprised what you can learn, and also who you could be inspired by.
5. Prioritizing can get difficult. Again, you just need to be organised for this one. I love my job and I easily get wrapped up in it - also with both my job and my education being part-time, it can be difficult to sometimes fit in your personal life because on some weeks, I have all the free-time in the world and some weeks can get super busy with deadlines.
6. You gain a lot of long-distance friends. This may not apply to everyone. Everyone I met was so lovely. I forgot to mention that I'm the only one doing my course so whilst everyone else was specifying in fashion, I was doing cosmetics meaning that sometimes it was difficult to relate. Also, it's just me and one other girl doing the course part-time and most of the people I made friends with have now gone back home which for most was different parts of the world.
7. Note down everything. every idea, every bit of inspo, article, everything.
8. Schedule a meeting with your course leader at least once a month... Just to make sure that everything that you're doing is what they expect from you. This really helps the stress-levels go down because they either reassure you everything is fine or they help point you in the direction you need to be going by giving you advice in more of a friend type of way!
9. Spend as much time at the library/uni as you can... because you won't be timetabled to be in as often. The more you're in and surrounded by other students the more it'll motivate you to do your own.
10. Just enjoy it... I know this is such a cliche but you really do need to enjoy it or else it's pointless. Make sure you pick a course that is 100% right for you and you should have no problem with this.
(woah that was a long post... sorry!)
Please feel free to ask me any questions :)
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