Be a Master of your Dream Career : Why Postgrad?

Shannon, our Project Manager intern, tells us why a postgraduate degree is the way to go to put you back on the right career track.

If you’re like me, when you graduated from your undergraduate degree, you were filled with enthusiasm for attempting to find the job of your dreams; a little bit of confusion because you didn’t know exactly what you wanted to do and dread that you would never find anything. In the year that followed I couldn’t get an interview for any vacancies in the Marketing and Advertising industry, never mind find my dream job.

Feeling frustrated and demotivated, I heard that the government were introducing a new Postgraduate Masters Loan that would give me access to education that had once seemed unrealistic. Through working in hospitality in my year out of education, this completely re-motivated me and I began to look for courses that sounded interesting and relevant.

I went for the Marketing (Creative Advertising) course at Manchester Metropolitan University – and loved it! Going back into education after having not written or read anything remotely academic for over a year seemed daunting and – in complete honesty – it was intense! However, you are learning so much in a short amount of time that you feel more confident in your knowledge of the subject and everything has a professional edge that seemed to be lacking in the hungover hand-ins of undergraduate work.

Masters come with a lot of extras said to increase your chance of employment such as CV workshops, professional development weeks and placement schemes (which is why I’m writing this blog now). We’ve also had a number of guest speakers – my personal favourites being Wayne Hemingway of Hemingway Design and Peter Holden of Holdens agency – who let you know about their journey into the industry and working processes, which can help you retain the motivation you started with.

If you’re feeling a little lost on the career path after graduation then postgrad study could be great for guiding you in the right direction – but make sure it’s right for you! There is a lot of reading, writing and much more reading, so do plenty of research into the course and make sure there are things you can learn and be interested in.

Don’t give up! And good luck!