My experience studying Business Management

Ever since I got my first professional job as a cashier and sales assistant, I have always analysed how my manager was in a such different life stage than me. I didn’t need to think about it that much as he was in his thirties with an undergraduate degree and a postgraduate degree, while I was 18 years old trying to finish college. However, the way he worked, talked with the employees and motivated me, was enough to convince me that I could do that as well, maybe even do better than him. Working for that company made me have an insight into a company that I’d never had before - the professionalism that was needed inside the company made me open my eyes to the business world. This is when I started to think about all the options I could pursue after I finished college.

I started to look for any courses related to business and after a lot of researching, I had decided to go to the United Kingdom and study Business Management at Solent University. I chose Solent because it seemed to be a great university with good teaching, recent buildings and was overall appealing. In Portugal, I live near the sea where it is usually good weather, and I am pretty sure I couldn’t live without it! When I saw that Solent was situated in Southampton, it had a big influence in my choice as it is a coastal city and not as cold as other cities in the UK. This was pretty much what I desired and I managed to achieve it.

Studying Business Management at Solent has definitely been one of my best decisions in my life. It totally changed my life, and I loved every minute of it. Even when I needed to do my first essay (I was totally clueless of how to write an essay, especially not in my native language), or when I was suffering from burnout with all the work I had to do, it was still amazing to be involved in this. The way the classes were organised and how the tutors delivered them were captivating. I finally had a firsthand view of how Business was taught, I was fascinated.

It is hard to say the best thing that I have done on this course so far. But the satisfaction of learning new skills, techniques and theory was enough for me to feel happy. Creating a LinkedIn was also a challenge, I never in my life thought about creating one. The idea of having a LinkedIn was non-existent, and now if you look at me, I am always checking my notifications, connections and even writing posts on it. It has been a weird transition in my life, but I am totally enjoying it. Another thing that was amazing was our course trip to Olympia GradJobs Fair in London. I was surprised when I got an email from my course leader talking about the possibility to go to a GradJobs fair in London for free. Obviously, I accepted it and it was an amazing experience. I networked with a lot of people, thus was able to gain important knowledge about the business industry.

My second year was harder due to the pandemic. I felt like I needed to go to university and have normal classes instead of online lectures as I thought they would not be that fun. However, I saw this as another challenge that I needed to get through, and it surely wasn’t easy. At first, I wasn’t that good at studying at home, I always ended up distracting myself by going on Instagram after 15 minutes of reading. Luckily, the pandemic forced me to acquire new skills, and working independently was one of them. I managed to train my self-discipline, and I ended up doing a better job of studying than in all my years in college.

I would certainly say that this year was full of challenges, and working in this way was just one of them. For anyone thinking about studying business management, I surely support that decision as I have really enjoyed it and have gained a lot of knowledge. I would advise that it is vital to not skip lectures and put in all your effort. Always aim high because it is better to always aim higher(as much as you can), and do not settle for ‘just’ good enough. You will be amazed to see how much you are capable of achieving when you think big and aim high.

Afonso F. Amaral