My name is Judit Plein, I am originally from Germany, but moved to London 3 years ago to study Marketing Management at Greenwich. As soon as I saw pictures of the campus, I knew this is where I wanted to study and I am happy I made that choice.
Other than the beautiful campus (I think this one doesn’t need explanation), one of the biggest things that makes Greenwich stand out from other universities is the immense personal and professional development support they offer. From the beginning, I was encouraged to grow through things like the PPD module, the GEP scheme, career mentoring, and teaching staff. I can 100% say that after graduating, I am no longer the same person I was 3 years ago. I’ve grown so much and have achieved things I never thought possible for myself, the biggest one being the University of Greenwich Merit Award for Outstanding Achievement. If you’d tell my younger self, who was struggling in school for so long, that I would receive an award for being the best student, I wouldn’t have believed it.
In school I studied basically every business subject you can think of, including accounting and finance, and while I knew I wanted to study a Business topic, I didn’t want to study the same thing all over again. At the end of Year 12, we studied Marketing for about 2 weeks, and in Year 13, I studied Management briefly. They both were the topics I was most interested in. However, in Germany, you can’t study either of them at an undergraduate level. I’ve wanted to live in London ever since I was 11 years old, therefore I decided that studying Marketing Management in Greenwich was the route I wanted to take.
There were so many amazing things about the Marketing Management programme. However, the three top things were the teaching staff, the people I got to meet through the programme, and the opportunities offered to me by the staff and university during and after my degree!
I enjoyed my three years of study and there are honestly too many modules to choose a favourite! I really turned into a nerd at Greenwich and was really engaged with everything I was taught. But if I were to pick, I’d say Brand Management with Emmanuel was my favourite module. There’s so many more I really loved, and most of the modules were really interesting and let me look at things from different angles/viewpoints, so it honestly is really hard to just pick one favourite.
My whole course was very inspiring, but the most inspiring thing is that Marketing really is everywhere around us! I don’t think there’ll ever be a world, where it isn’t needed or used. This excites me for my future.
I know uni isn’t for everyone, but for me it was the right path. It has helped me come out of my shell, thrive, and ultimately excel. And so much of this is due to the people that were teaching me, as some skills can’t be learned through assignments, but only by interacting with people and making the most of your time at uni.
At the end of the day, a degree is a piece of paper. What matters is what you do with it. I definitely think my degree has helped me with my career prospects.
Throughout my degree, I was able to identify my strengths and interests and it became clear to me that I am more interested in the ‘behind the scenes’, aka strategy, analytics, etc. And since I am really interested in psychology, I applied for a master’s in Social Cognition, to better understand human behaviour as a whole and apply that knowledge to marketing and data. This September I will start my master’s, but I am also working part-time as a Research Analyst at Cision. I hadn’t planned to enter the corporate world until after my postgraduate degree, but my health didn’t allow me to continue working in my role as Customer Assistant at Tesco, so I decided to find a part-time job that aligns with both my health and my degree.
I would strongly advise everyone to get as involved in everything uni has to offer as much as possible. That goes for lessons: one of my lecturers told us in 1st year that when you break down your tuition fees, each lesson technically costs £40, so that’s how much you’d waste if you didn’t attend. I would also encourage students to try extracurricular things! Throughout my time at Greenwich, I was part of the Marketing Society’s committee, first as Secretary, and then as President for two years and this has truly helped my CV stand out, as it was the closest I got to professional experience. So, take part in a society, webinars, mentoring schemes, etc. as much as you can (without jeopardising your uni work of course) and try and build up relevant skills through you time at uni.
