"Never had I learnt so many things and felt such a sense of accomplishment."
Country of origin: China
Programme: MSc Marketing Strategy and Innovation
Graduation year: 2020
My course
You must not be overwhelmed by the various waves that constitute modern society. Instead, you must charge forth and create your own waves.
I enjoy the challenge in creating my own path and this is the reason why I decided to study at Bayes Business School, a business school highly valued for not only its knowledge and expertise but more importantly, the way in which it prepares you for the real world as well.
The MSc in Marketing Strategy and Innovation offers a very structured and smart curriculum that emphasises complex marketing and modern trends such as digital transformation as well as human value.
Personally, I believe marketing is about drawing people in and accurately targeting, instead of the older style of ‘pushing’ and closing the deal.
Marketing is a delicate balance between ego and altruism, since it results in not only a profitable company but also the efficient exchange between social supply and demand. It is this balance that interested me and made me want to explore marketing further.
My experience
The Master’s in Marketing Strategy and Innovation makes it easy for students to learn the key points and form their own skillsets and offers seminars and group works which are very bold and interesting.
In the large group session in the second semester, we established a brand-new business and conducted professional market research, market analysis, positioning, digital marketing, etc., and finally completed a report of hundreds of pages. Never had I learnt so many things and felt such a sense of accomplishment.
My favourite memory from my master’s was a technology roundtable forum after Halloween, and the school invited experts from leading tech companies such as Google. I lost my voice at that movement because of the throat inflammation after the Halloween Party. Hence, I could only use typing to communicate with Google’s Product Manager Director, Mr. Kan.
After I showed him the five questions written on my phone and explained the reason why I lost my voice, Mr. Kan laughed friendly and said to me something like “the Business School students have both the wonderful life and the most motivated work attitude”, he was very impressed.
This very successful business leader kindly answered all the questions and talked even more with me until we separated at the school gate, and then we keep contact on LinkedIn. The networking opportunities available are so valuable.
My career
I’m currently working as a Smart Device Product Manager at Lenovo in Shanghai. Lenovo is a global high-tech company with an annual revenue of more than 38 billion pounds and ranks 443 in the "2021 Forbes Global 2000".
Half of my work is market analysis and product marketing, and the other half is the application of the latest smart technology. My team works in various countries over the world, and we have a lot of creative sessions, iterative challenges, and online meetings daily. I enjoy it for so many reasons, and the most important one is that I bring new value and work on new products every day.
I found this job through a Chinese recruitment website. But there is no doubt that my master’s experience and the Postgraduate Careers team helped me a lot. During my studies, I participated in many workshops, social events, job fairs, sharing sessions held by industry experts, etc. Nicola and Toni are the two career teachers I want to thank.
They not only taught me about CV writing, interviews and so on, but also taught me how to always be confident and to use my personal strengths. In fact, it was the personality test suggested by Career Office tell me that the product manager should be the best position for me! This made me boldly choose this direction instead of pure marketing strategy during the job-hunting process.
During the two-month process of many interviews and selections, Lenovo asked me to make a market and product analysis for one of their smart devices. Based on my knowledge and experience of the group work in the second semester, I completed a 15-page report and the high-quality of my report surprised and satisfied the manager very much.
The deep knowledge and soft skills I learned in my master’s, such as market research, competitive product analysis, customer research, customer behaviour analysis, etc., are very useful for me in my current role.
My advice for future students
- Please cherish the short time you’re studying for and do your best to learn and practice.
- Don't doubt whether what you learn is useful, believe me it will be!
- Think about your career plan, participate in a large number of career office activities and take part of all of the opportunities available to you.
- The networking workshop is one of the best!
