By James Dylag, BA Business Management
One great thing about studying at university level is the freedom you get when choosing your modules – gone are the days where you follow a specific curriculum! Instead, you get to direct your own learning and choose to study subjects which specifically interest you. In this post I’m going to talk about my favourite module I took in third year.
Firstly, I’ll give you a quick overview of what it actually means to pick your own modules. Every year at university you have to pick modules which equate to 120 credits – In first year, modules are usually 10 credits for those that last one semester, and 20 for those that last the entire duration of the academic year. In second and third year, modules are worth 20 credits and usually only run for one semester (meaning you do six modules per year). At times, there may be compulsory modules however, as you move through your degree you get an increased amount of freedom – in the Business Management programme, I only had one compulsory module in third year, I was able to pick five myself.
I did a range of modules in third year, but my personal favourite was Socially Responsible Marketing and Consumption which was taught by Dr. Madeline Powell. The module comprised of a group assessment and individual report, which was a nice balance and meant that the work didn’t all hit you at once – one of the reasons why I enjoyed the module so much! The module looks at the changing nature of marketing, in a world that is becoming increasingly globalised with issues such as corporate responsibility, climate change, and ethics taking centre stage. Taught over ten lectures, the module gave a real insight into the practises adopted by some businesses when tackling this issue, whilst giving us the chance to use our analytical skills to apply the module’s content to real businesses and therefore understand the practical implications of the module content. I found this to be a useful quality as it allowed me to critically evaluate real business scenarios.
Another reason that I enjoyed the module so much was the freedom we had with our assessments. For the group assessment, we were able to choose our own groups with the only restriction being that the company we analyse must be a fashion company. Similarly, the only restriction given for our individual assessment was that we were not allowed to choose a fashion company. This meant that we could focus our assessments on companies we actually were interested in, which I genuinely believe made me more engaged in the module. Having this freedom almost made the assessment feel easier. I think this because I was researching companies and issues that I was personally interested in which made the process much less strenuous!
Third year may be a long way away, but definitely consider this module if you’re interested in the social standards that we should/do hold businesses accountable to, and how businesses respond to these!