Business Student Webinar | University of Chichester
To let everybody know that this session is going to be recorded and all your names and everything will be blurred from the bottom so nobody will know that you are here and it's just so in case you want to re-watch it back or for anybody who missed it we can get it recorded and pop it on YouTube so hello my name is Jess and I work in the student recruitment and outreach team and I'll be asking all the questions today and we've got three lovely business student ambassadors here who are going to be answering all of our questions and all of your questions and letting you know what it's like to be a business student so I'm gonna ask the three of you to introduce yourself tell us the year that you're in and what course you're on so Annie-Marie we start with you hi I'm Annie-Marie I'm in the third year and I'm studying Event Management and Marketing excellent and Jen hi I'm Jen I'm studying Marketing and Event management also and I'm in my second year excellent and Lucy Mae hi I'm Lucy and I'm studying Digital Marketing that's okay so just on the screen now is a list of all the business courses that we offer it is quite a lot but yeah that's just just for your reference but obviously these three will be able to answer all questions about the modules and things that they've done so first off all about researching university so I'm just gonna pick some of you at random to answer these questions so we'll go in exactly the same order that I started uh Annie-Marie what steps did you take before joining university so the group I took was slightly different to the regular route I did a foundation degree which was two years and then I applied for Chichester university to do my third year and I used the UCAS website to apply awesome and what about you Jen I took a gap year before I came to uni because I wasn't sure what I wanted to study and so I researched the course and the university and decided which one I wanted to do actually I hadn't done marketing or event management or a business subject before so I wasn't really sure what to expect but I was pleased with the course that I ended up taking and Lucy how did you feel about going to university I felt very unsure when I first started because I actually applied to another university for forensic science and then a week before I changed my mind and I was like you know that's not for me and then I researched business degrees and then I live just outside of Chichester anyway so I was like you know what that makes sense oh cool so we'll go on to that next one start your first week at university obviously it's quite daunting going into something completely new and different Jen what was your first week like well the university gave us tours of the campuses and we had a fresher's fair which was quite a big event so we were able to join clubs we also had introduction classes to all of the different modules that we were going to take which gave us an opportunity to meet teachers and classmates and feel more relaxed and as part of this there was activities that we could do in the classes so for example we played crazy golf for one of the days during the introduction week and there was a lot of events going on throughout the week like having an outdoor cinema and different sports cool what about you Lucy how was your first week I was similar to Jen's because we joined at the same time yeah I remember the crazy golf and yeah the outdoor cinema as well but it was also like taster lectures which was quite nice because we got to meet some of the people that we'd be in classes with so it wasn't completely daunting walking into a class of people I didn't know in the second week that's good and how about you Annie-Marie so it was a little bit different because it was when COVID with everything was happening with COVID so there weren't as many activities as the year before but we still had an opportunity to have an introduction week get to know each other and we also at the classes I did it in were some of the classes I'm actually sitting in now for lecturers which I found really helpful because it meant when I actually went for to start my classes I felt a lot more comfortable than if I was going into a completely new environment well that's good and so sticking with you Annie-Marie while we while we're here how did you find it settling into student life here um so I really like the campus and I just I find it like it's one of my favourite places to be on I'm on the at the Bognor campus and because I felt like in a safe comfortable place where I felt like relaxed it just helped me fit in really quickly and yeah it was a good experience that's good Jen how did you find it settling in I found that I settled in really quickly and it was quite easy to settle in into the life of taking the courses and also into the accommodation at the Bognor Regis campus and the events and activities made it easy to meet new people that's cool and how about you Lucy yeah I found it really easy actually because I don't live on campus I commute in so not really much change for me apart from like lectures and things like that and assignments being a bit more like step up from college kind of thing but apart from that it was pretty easy oh good so again go down the line and you can tell everybody what it's like just a week in your timetable we'll start with you Lucy so at the moment I normally do two to three days of timetabled lectures I do Mondays and Thursdays at the moment which are like packed full days and then I have Wednesdays Thursdays and Friday Tuesdays Wednesdays and Fridays to do independent study and work on my assignments which is quite nice because it allows me to do my own sort of research that's good and Jen I think I wrote this quote in blue that's on this slide saying about there's ten hours of contact plus seven hours on top of that so it gives you a pretty good idea and those hours would generally be from 10 until five or six like the you don't need to wake up very early and you're not really working in the evening that's good there's nothing worse than the 9am lecture I never enjoyed that not about that life and Annie what about Annie-Marie sorry what about you okay so it's slightly different from me as I'm in the third year semester I was in two days a week and this semester I'm doing work placement so I'm working from home with my work placement most of the time and I'll go in now and again or have lectures online depending on the circumstances yeah that's cool that is very convenient because the next slide is all about placements so do you want to tell us about your placement Annie-Marie yeah sure so it's quite cool because what I'm doing for my workplace and is actually working for myself cool and it's yeah it's awesome because I get support from the lecturers I can check in with them and they check in with me with the flexibility welcome and it means that hopefully once I finish my placement I'm going to really build on on my business that's very cool and did you like talk to the uni about it that you wanted to do it was it something you like agreed in advance or how was it like set up at all so we I talked to there's like a really cool placement that was personally really helped us find placements and I talked to them and my academic advisor we all have academic advisors and asked them if it was okay and I was a bit worried to start with because I thought oh maybe they wouldn't want me to but it was actually totally opposite they were really all for it and like yes like if it's gonna help you and help your business then like let's do it and let's make it work that's really cool and Jen and Lucy have you done any placements or are planning any placements at all Jen if you want to go first I haven't done a placement yet but I'm trying to get one and the careers team is supporting me to do this they're helping me write my CV and cover letters and you can also have a practice interview with the careers team they're really friendly and approachable and they're willing to put in a lot of time to help you that's good do you know where you want to do your placement or what kind of things you want to do yeah I want a placement in marketing but actually it's kind of difficult at the moment especially with COVID so I'm applying for lots of places and fingers crossed they get something positive come back from it that'd be good yeah and what about you Lucy are you doing one planning or doing one yeah so I was meant to actually do one summer just gone but because of COVID obviously that didn't go ahead but I plan on doing the 10-week placement in third year with the same company hopefully yeah and what company was it what were you doing I actually already worked for them but just doing a different job it's a wedding events venue so yeah I'd be doing like a venue coordinator type role that's very cool very exciting and so do you feel like the placements will help with your degree kind of going forward any any of you answer go for it yeah I think some of the modules that I've already done will help me in the role and then the role will help me feel like things like my dissertation and things like that yeah that's cool so oh everybody's favourite topic is exams and essays so in our business courses what kind of assessments do you take Jen go for it in the marketing and event management everything is coursework and for me it was important to choose a subject that everything was coursework because I definitely prefer this method of assessment and i think a lot of the other subjects in the business school also coursework so you'd have to check on the website but I'm pretty sure a lot of them are so yeah it's all coursework and in event management it's also based on practical assessment so in your second and third year you make an event and then it's assessed in this way that's very cool and Lucy what about you yeah very similar so 100% coursework but also things like presentations and not necessarily formal essays sometimes their reports and sometimes their portfolios which are a bit nicer to put together than writing a really long essay because it's a bit more interesting yeah so hold your attention longer and Annie-Marie you're writing your dissertation at the moment aren't you yeah I am writing my dissertation at the moment I didn't ever think I'd ever write one and I just finished chapter three and I'm actually really enjoying it and I'm finding that the support from our lectures is really amazing even working remotely during COVID and if I have any questions or I need any support then and I'm always supported and yeah I really value that that's really good so how do you kind of prepare for the assessments do you get oh it's like help during lectures and can you kind of reach out to lecturers as well yeah so we have the lectures to prepare for the assessment and then I mean what I personally do is because they're all recorded I like to then I'm when I'm preparing for the assessment at home I then re-watch the lecture which is really useful that's handy how about you Jen how do you prepare for your assessments some of the assignments are some of individual and others of them are as part of a team so you have to kind of consider this when you're preparing for the assessments but if it is part of a team then it comes down to individual contributions so you say to the teacher this is the parts that we all did and it's very clear so you're assessed individually so it's a bit more fair like this so I would prepare by reading some books or just some chapters for some books by going to classes and watching the teachers presentations and also googling information very good and how about you Lucy it's a bit of a weird one everybody normally goes but I actually really like reading journal articles instead of books because they're normally a lot more up to date they can be quite difficult to read but they're so much more helpful than books in my opinion and teachers the lecturers like share exemplar past submissions with us sometimes which I find really interesting even though it's not like the same topic it's nice to see how people have structured things and I find that really helpful that is useful so the big question what do you plan to do with your business degree Annie-Marie what are your plans when you finish? so I'm hoping to launch the business that I'm working on at the moment and hopefully that will be successful another potential option is that I've been offered a event management job in Saudi Arabia wow that's very cool yeah so I've got a couple of options and yeah time will tell that's very exciting and Jen what about you what are your plans when you finished I would like to go into marketing and work my way up and progress in my career and start to be some sort of leader and have responsibility that's kind of a long-term goal of mine and I was really surprised that this was going to be my goal because when I came to uni I wasn't expecting to have this as my ambition like it's definitely changed since I arrived but I think that uni has prepared me to do things that i really wouldn't imagine that I would think would be possible so like feeling confident and capable to and ready to be in a role like this cool and Lucy how about you so I've been looking at a lot of post grad placements so my one that I'm aiming for at the moment is in the Ministry of Defence it's a project management so it gives you a project management qualification so keep learning but at the same time yeah learn and earn oh that's great slogan I'm copywriting that so memorable moments of your degrees I'll be honest I can't remember who sent in what but again if we start with you Lucy you want to talk us through any memorable moments that you've had so far yeah so mine was the one about the student fair similar to what Jen said before just seeing all the clubs and like what the union had to offer and local businesses and things like that that even though I live here I didn't actually know existed and the pub quiz nights obviously they're not going ahead with COVID at the moment but they were really fun in the SU when they were going ahead yeah the quiz was always a highlight for me I loved it and Jen how about you my comment is the one in blue so it's about studying in Finland this year and the uni was really amazing at supporting me and encouraging me to go to Finland and the coordinators and the admin team were so friendly and I feel like they're very approachable and I can always ask questions and I feel updated with what's going on at Chichester even though I'm not physically there oh that's very cool and how about you Annie-Marie so as I mentioned before I'm really enjoying writing my dissertation and then another thing just like day-to-day life when I go into uni especially in when it's a little bit warmer I just really enjoy sitting in the campus because we've got such a nice campus and eating food outside yeah it's just a really nice environment to be in oh that's really good so things you wish things you wish you knew before starting university I'm sure there's all loads of things that we wish people had told us before we came so we'll just reverse it Annie-Marie what do you wish you knew before starting university? I wish I knew that it was okay to read I was really resistant to reading and haven't haven't started to enjoy it towards the end but actually the more you do it the easier it gets and yeah I've started to get into it now I recommend to do it more good advice and Jen how about you what do you wish you knew yeah what do you wish you knew before starting university I wish that I'd known um about how you the experience is what you make of it and the university life allows you to be so independent and you have to make your own path like you're given the opportunities you just need to take them and nobody is going to do it for you and no one is going to push you into doing something that you don't want to do and like school which I was really surprised about yeah that's very very true and how about you Lucy mine was very not like the others I just bought so much stationery like notebooks pens and then I didn't need it because everything was online even before COVID like I didn't need any of it because all the books are online and everything like that yeah I feel you I brought a lot of cutlery and plates and that's just not you don't need all of that I used like one plate done I didn't need like six it's stupid so brings us on to any questions from you guys watching feel free to pop them in the chat or if you want to be brave and unmute to yourself you can ask these guys any questions you have about the course or about the university in general so we have a question team how is the support on getting a year abroad Jen if you want to take this one it was really amazing they encouraged me and worked with me hand in hand to get everything sorted yeah I think I applied about in December or January of last year I knew quite a lot in advance that I wanted to do it and George who's the coordinator he goes through every he went through everything with me like what the academic requirements were like how the modules work what options I have and where to go abroad help with funding it was really clear the way that the process was and I would really recommend that anybody like considers doing it are you considering doing it Erin we brace for Erin's response yeah I am hoping to do a year abroad if I can okay sure yeah cool it's really great oh yeah you should excellent next question is from Rosie she says I'm planning to take digital marketing is there a specific laptop device you should use or does it not matter that much so I use my laptop I used throughout college it doesn't really matter so the uni has macbooks macs and also pcs but for the coding and programming modules I wouldn't recommend getting a macbook or a mac because it's quite difficult to use the software that we use on apple programs it's difficult to access the assignment submissions portal as well but that's the only struggle that I had with like macbooks and things like that yeah we also have lots of pcs and macs in the library as well that you are more than welcome to access whenever you like and it does get to a certain point in the semester where the library goes 24 hours so if if your time management skills are very very bad you can be there at three o'clock in the morning if you need to so next question from Rebecca how easy was it to make friends especially during COVID so that was something I was really nervous about and coming into my third year and and also in COVID times but it's really cool I've made a couple of good friends and because you do group work as well you work with people you wouldn't necessarily work with and get to know them and kind of build strong relationships from that also and like if you come in your first year everyone's in the same position and and everyone's nice and wants to just yeah be like welcoming and stuff there's nothing to worry about that is a good response you have to remember that everybody's in the same boat as well when you first start like everybody's nervous about making friends and because you're all nervous about making friends you're all really awkward and it's fine and you also have to do really uncomfortable icebreaker sessions in your like first week that I'm sure you guys all fondly remember I know I certainly do so start thinking about some fun facts about yourself that'll do you well so next one from Luke how do you know the course was for you any of you feel free I don't mind answering that again sorry I'm so I live a half an hour commute to Chichester uni so that was one thing for me I really like not having to commute far and still being able to live at home and also the uni is smaller compared to other uni so there's like small classes like all the lecturers know you by name and you know the lecturers and that was one thing that kind of that was what made my decision because it's really nice having that more personalised learning experience yeah and for me I also was unsure about which course exactly I wanted to do because it does business management event management marketing digital marketing so I was kind of unsure but I think it's about looking at the module page on the uni website and you can read through every single module that you would study and then see would I be interested in spending a few hours a week learning about this module and that definitely helps and also it's important to know that you can change course like within the first year so I'm doing event management and marketing but if I want to change to business management and event management is possible like there is flexibility because in the first year a lot of the courses that you take are the same like probably me and Lucy we did the the same courses or very similar ones in the first year even though we're on different subjects so it is still possible to change afterwards yeah definitely that's the same across every department I started on a completely different course and then changed halfway through my first year and they were like yeah because in the grand scheme of things you're paying a lot of money to be here so we want you to be happy about it so there is a lot of flexibility amongst courses and if you don't think you're enjoying it talk to your lecturers and they will absolutely help you so another one what was the deal breaker for you guys to choose this uni if you want to take it in turns crack on I'll go first it's the other guy's talks definitely sort of how close it is and proximity to my house because I'm quite a home home person but also how like the other guys mentioned it's such a community feel because it's small like you recognise people around campus and in the business school you know like you know other people because you've shared modules with them so I think that was definitely the thing for me that made me choose this one cool and Annie-Marie or Jen or both so I didn't know at the time but like reflecting on it but to me as well as the small class sizes the lecturers in the business school and they you know they always say like what the teachers like creates learning experience and and that's very true and the lecturers are great and they all just want you to do well and it's really cool because they'll like push you to try and be as independent as you can but if you're struggling they'll still like point you in the direction and tell you like if you need anything or any support then they'll always be there and they will yeah that's really cool that's really good for me it was the same reasons about like having the supportive people really supportive atmosphere and also everyone that I met was so friendly and welcoming and supportive and I knew that I wanted to study in this kind of environment I was really happy with the location too because it's like you've got the countryside and the the sea nearby as well so it's really beautiful area especially if you're moving away from home for the first time or one of the first times yeah what else I think those were the main reasons yeah oh so Lucy and Annie-Marie you both commute onto campus is that right but Jen did you live in halls when you were in your first year yeah I was in Barbara Smith at Bognor Regis campus awesome how was it how did you find your halls experience? it was really nice and the Bognor ones are all catered for which means that you don't need to cook for yourself so it was really nice because I could spend my time like relaxing and being with friends and things rather than cooking a lot yeah and there was also like 24/7 security and like and so somebody was always available to help you if you need any help there was an accommodation office so you were really supported in this living arrangement that's good and did you go into student housing for your second year no I came to Finland so I'm still here now you're still in Finland now yeah exactly that's very cool I didn't realise you were still in Finland that's very exciting yeah and Lucy and Annie-Marie how is it commuting to the university? Annie-Marie you go first there we go okay I really like it and it's easy for me to commute I'm from Worthing so it's not far yeah and it needs to drive it's nice to drive as well you get to see countryside and stuff but that's bonus pretty and how about you Lucy how's it commuting yeah pretty much the same to be honest because I'm not in uni well obviously at all now but in the first year two to three days a week it's quite nice because the other two days at least I can work from home and I've got still got the option to just drive into campus if I wanted to or if I needed to use the software on the computers at uni but I'm in the opposite direction to Annie-Marie like Portsmouth way and that's good and Gaby's just put in the chat that you can stay on either one of our campuses so we have a campus in Chichester and a campus in Bognor the business school is based in the Bognor campus but if you wanted to live in Chichester and commute down to Bognor we have a free bus that goes between the two campuses and if you also want to go up to the Chichester campus to use the other library they're basically identical but if you wanted a change of scenery you can get yourself up to Chichester and the bus is free with your student card so I can see there's some typing going on in the chat so we'll wait and see what people say while they're typing Rosie put a bit further up about she has a Chromebook but an actual laptop would be more useful I think personally I think I would find I find a laptop more useful just because in coding it's quite specific and I think on a Chromebook the screen's quite small so me personally it would be easier for me to see what I'm doing on things like that I hope that's helpful yeah I also made a mistake and I said business is in the Bognor campus it's actually in the Chichester campus I completely forgot that I do apologise the business school is now in Chichester sorry about that everybody how often do the buses run and until what time I can't remember off the top of my head the bus timetable is on our website but I do believe they are relatively regular and we have two services one that goes direct campus to campus and one that stops around the city so you can take either one of them but they are quite regular and so and also I think on certain nights they go on later by a couple of hours maybe the last one is like two in the morning on some nights yeah I think you're probably right and so we've got what are practical assessments like and how are assessments different from other courses so the practical assessments for digital marketing were quite they're quite lengthy I'm not gonna lie they just because it's coding and a lot of work goes into coding and it's very specific so if you make one little mistake the whole thing will just throw itself out but the lecturers are so good like Annie-Marie said sitting down with you and supporting you and going through it with you Roger specifically one of the IT guys he he spent god knows how many hours just staying with me and helping me out because I'm not technologically inclined at all but coding was not did not come naturally to me so yeah the support was definitely there for practical assignments it made it a lot more bearable that's pretty good Jen how did you find your ones the practical assessments you know I don't think I've had one yet at Chichester because in the first year you don't have one for event management so I don't think I'd be able to say but I mean last semester for marketing we had to do research about a company in Chichester so that was quite practical and so yeah do some research and then give some suggestions and this kind of thing so it's kind of working for for a company almost and yeah I would say it went really well it's more enjoyable when you're actually doing it for a company because it's more realistic and more valuable to you and you feel motivated to do it and just another one have you guys joined any sport teams or societies at all so I joined the sustainability society in my first year it's called Jump called and I got a free plant when I joined as well so but yeah they do like surveys so they send them out via email and you fill them out so whether you've got the bus or public transport or whether you use recyclable materials or reusable water bottles and then you get points and then you can claim about the points that's very cool Jen or Annie-Marie did you join any societies at all or sport teams last year I joined the environmental society but we set it up quite late in the year and then COVID happened so it was kind of difficult to plan anything so nothing much really happened we met up up a few times and had some meetings about you know about like the environment but that was it Annie-Marie are you well being in my third year I made the decision not to join any societies because I wanted to focus on my work but what I would say is if you want to join any then definitely do it in the first and second year because by the time you get to your third year you will have lots of work to do so yeah definitely do it yeah it's a good suggestion so are there any more questions from anybody at all just another one from me did you any of you guys get a part-time job while you were studying at all sorry are you gonna say something no I have two actually sorry yeah I actually had two in my last semester so I worked for the events company that I said about um while there was the gap between the lockdowns and COVID and they could open and I also work at the co-op so a lot more boring but yeah it's funny it was all right balancing it between your studies yeah so I did have to balance obviously how many hours I actually did compared to how many hours I was at uni um and towards the end of the semester I did have to drop down my hours because obviously it does get a lot the workload gets heavier when the semester starts to end but I found it okay as long as I just kept myself organized and I knew how much what I was capable of doing and whether I needed a rest basically yeah and Annie-Marie what were you going to say so I'm a event and sponsorship manager for a conference and luckily enough because of COVID the work my workload was really really small and it was a good thing because I don't think in the third year I'd be able to balance both and did you find it was like all right for you balancing it wise yes there weren't that many hours that's really good there's also a lot of job opportunities to work for the university as well so we have jobs at the students' union you can work in the canteen and these three are all student ambassadors so they do these kind of things all the time they do campus tours they work open days and that is a good opportunity plus you get to do things like this what a treat yeah so are there any more questions at all I think we missed a couple from Rebecca because we said how what are practical assessments like and then how are the assessments different from other courses yeah go for it if you guys want to chat about that anybody want to take it I'll go for it so I think in the business school at least all the assessments are quite similar in that they're mostly coursework based I think some modules do have exams like finance and accounting I think have exams but apart from that they're all quite similar in that we all get we have quite a lot of crossover modules so a lot of reports essays presentations sometimes and there's also the opportunity to work in teams but I know that across the uni a lot of other courses have exams quite often hear people stressing out in the library area saying I've got exams this afternoon but yeah I think in the business school they're all quite similar and Rebecca also asked are all courses on the Bognor campus I made the mistake and said that business is on Bognor but it's actually in Chichester so it's on the Chichester campus but we do have courses split across the two in other departments yeah because I think it's gonna or it's moving like across to the other campus which is why I stayed in Bognor Regis campus last year but it's moved to Chichester so if there aren't any more questions we will wrap things up thank you very much everybody for coming and listening to us and listening to these our lovely ambassadors and thank you Jen, Lucy and Annie-Marie for giving up your time so thank you everybody
2021-03-10 17:42
