Kira - Choosing my course

As a final year tourism management student who take a placement year, I’ve had four years to experience the university and strength my course offers. One of the best things about my course must be the lecturers. It’s a very cliché thing to say but the team are so strong and friendly! Referred to as the THEM team (Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management), the lecturers are all good friends and it shows; and I would genuinely consider many of the lecturers my friends too. They are always down for a chat, helping with assignments and lecture notes wherever possible. Our module leader, in particular, is fantastic and we have little social events with the THEM team, such as Christmas parties fueled with prosecco and orange juice, career networking with hundreds of job opportunities and it is always someone’s birthday within the tourism management course so there is a constant supply of cake! The team are professional, knowledgeable but super approachable and kind-hearted too with our interest in the forefront of their mind.

My course has so many aspects to it as well, so I’ve covered modules such as tourism planning, HR (Human Resources), strategic business management, data analysis, international field trip and niche tourism. The best module was the international field trip whereby we went to Marbella in the second year and undertook a photograph observation assignment. Not only did we go but we were able to plan our own trips and ended up in this really secluded, beautiful village called Ojen, which lead to a shift in my career path and influenced my placement year which I’ll talk about a bit more in a second. The course also entails a whole load of trips, ranging from The British Museum, World Travel Market, Signature Airport (a private airport where we viewed the operations, apron and guest suites - we even sat in the same chair as Beyoncé), Shakespeare’s Birthplace and loads more. The opportunities within this course are endless. My placement year was one of the best opportunities I had too, where students take a year out to work in an industry-related role, having a hands-on experience learning from industry experts. This is not a mandatory part of the course either so students can simply do a three-year course or take the placement or study abroad choice. I worked within an organization called Wendy Wu Tours, designing tailormade holidays and ended up setting up my own team, managing and training days which gave me a heap of experience. In the meantime, my course mates went off to all corners of the world including Japan, Spain, Singapore, and Disneyworld so there are endless opportunities.