University of Kent (reviews)

The new global cultural economy is an overlapping discursive order where money, commodities and persons are involved in ceaselessly chasing each other. It is not a shapeless inventory, there is always the fear of cultural absorption reaching global polity manifestations. In other words, what might appear as one man’s imagined community is another’s prison. As such, marketing and media consultancies are now adapting to the technologies that will embrace new ways that maximise productivity to allow their clients to remain on top of today’s competition and future ones.

As such, finding a course which unlocks these predictive insights is vital for preparing for a career in the ever-changing world of modern media.

This joint honours degree offers an academically rigorous approach to the study allowing students to have hands-on teaching and interactions with experienced members of the broad field who bring a wealth of industrial insights including Journalist professional Mrs Rayner who is always available to support and guide students on their journalism journey by proving personalised attention and freedom to their work. This is not short of allowing students to explore and control their own assignment objectives i.e writing an article on their chosen topic and allowing to interview persons of interest. In other words, students are encouraged to work independently on the design and execution of coursework.

However, if this independent directory is not for you, the school’s non-credit academic programmes like writeright and Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS) have been designed to help new students bridge the gap between sixth form/College and University by providing a pathway to academic success i.e 1 to 1 meetings on how to reference, what lecturers are looking for when marking your work and how to manage your time effectively. As well as this, the passionate module leaders involved in the social policy/journalism school are able to provide you with direct feedback with their extensive office hours which is a vital opportunity for understanding your assignments clearly allowing you to have a greater chance at achieving top grades.

The progressive curriculum allows students to choose their intellectual investments with the course structure appointing students the freedom to often choose what they want to learn. In other words, throughout my time at the University of Kent I was able to pick from an extensive catalogue of modules which allowed me to understand which topics I am interested in perusing I.e in my first academic year I chose promotional media which allowed me to have a taste of the pr and marketing world by producing my own mockup portfolio of brand collaborations, logos and copying which I continue to use and build on today when applying for internships.

In saying this, the current course is split between the main Canterbury and Medway campus which is not ideal for those who do not like long car journeys. The university does provide an easily accessible and free coach to both campuses which runs hourly from the bus stops. Despite this, I found that if you had only one seminar or lecture at Medway it was not worth the journey as it would take up 3-4 hours of your time which many of my course mates rarely did. Whilst, the module leaders did always record and post their slides I noticed a vast difference in both my attention and the success of the module if I did not attend face-to-face events. As such, For them to improve this course, I would suggest that the university sets up this combined course on only one campus.