Why I chose my course - Business and Marketing

Choosing your course can be difficult, with so many things to study and pick from. Social Media Rep and third year Business & Marketing student Gemma has penned what made her choose her course - and what she likes the most about it.

What initially attracted me to studying Marketing was the experience of working in the area. I was very lucky with a previous job because I was taken under the wing of my awesome boss as a Marketing Intern when a position within the department came up, and frankly I just fell in love with it.

I’m one of those people who’s always wanted to be a creative type; but sadly, I can’t draw or paint (unless abstract finger-painting counts, very abstract). And as much as I love music, I can’t carry a tune.

Marketing was the perfect way to exercise my creative energy, because there’s so much to it. From conceptualising new campaigns and design work, to implementing it and seeing it all pan out; it’s a very satisfying process to be part of. Branding and the theory behind I is also a hugely creative part of Marketing that I adore; and has been one of the favourite parts of my course too.

Marketing also has its deeply analytical and technical parts too, from conducting data analysis and research, to using those elements to pull a report together. All of it I enjoy equally, as it’s a very varied job and what you end up doing changes so much from day to day.  

What first attracted me to the University of Huddersfield was the rave reviews of the Business School, and the employability rates for Marketing students. After attending an Open Day and being able to discuss marketing concepts with other potential students, I was set. Another bonus of my course is that it’s Business and Marketing, effectively giving me the best of both worlds and an excellent background knowledge in business to help me along in my career.

During my two years at University (with my current third year being spent on placement - more on that soon!), I’ve had some amazing opportunities through my course.

In my first year, my year was given the chance to work in teams to produce a marketing plan for a local company, Epicure Bar & Kitchen. It turned into a competition between us all, with the winning group being treated to a free meal at Epicure too. I’m still proud to say my group won and Epicure is a fantastic place with incredible coffee!

And it didn’t stop there. In my second year, it got even more exciting. As part of our Managing and Communicating Brands module, again in groups, we had to design our own brand for a theorical company and present it at a branding exhibition held towards the end of our final term.

That day was incredible amounts of fun - the creativity and energy of everyone on our course and what they came up with was amazing to see. We all put so much work into our individual brands, and it really showed.

For anyone who’s not familiar with branding, this means we had to choose not just our logo, but font, colour styles, key wording choices, and every single detail that pulls a brand together - and then justify them in a report and at the exhibition! I felt like this was the absolute best way for us to learn about branding too; learning by doing and researching the theory behind branding as we went along - with a lot of help from our fantastic lecturers of course. (Shout out to David and Qing!)

The Business side of my course has been just as enjoyable too. Learning the theory surrounding how a business works has been incredibly helpful in backing up many marketing decisions made throughout my course and placement. Similarly, to our branding expo, we also had to create our own theoretical company for our Small Business module; which was just as interesting.

The past two years have been some of the absolute best for me, between what I’ve learnt and the incredible people I’ve met.