Making the most of every opportunity to build a career in marketing

Gemma Moss, a BA (Hons) Business Management and Marketing graduate at Southampton Solent University, turned a single LinkedIn message to a guest lecturer into months of mentoring, a network of industry contacts and a paid role working events across the South Coast.

Gemma originally came to Solent to study sports journalism, drawn in by an applicant interview day where she got to know staff and course mates who she still counts among her closest friends. After first year, she switched from sports journalism into business management and marketing.

"I definitely got a change. I felt a lot better in business than what I think I would have done in sports journalism."

That shift opened the door to working directly with live clients as part of her course. A guest lecture on marketing metrics introduced her to Solent alumni Ben Michaelis from ThinkEngine, a Southampton-based business. She messaged him directly on LinkedIn, and what followed was weekly one-to-one mentoring from October through to January, an invitation to networking events and a case study with Think Engine as part of a group project in sustainable strategic management.

"I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for him coming in as a guest lecturer," she says.

Her course also worked with Heathrow on a module built around operations management, giving her experience with a major national client alongside the smaller, community-based businesses closer to home.

Alongside her studies, Gemma made the most of Solent's Turing funding to volunteer abroad, from sport coaching in Fiji in her first year to two summers in America.

"That's stepping outside of my comfort zone and adding a bit more to my CV," she says.

Gemma credits her degree with giving her the collaboration and research skills she'll carry into whatever comes next, from navigating group projects, to planning, researching and delivering her final major project on international marketing, a piece of work she chose to base on Fiji, a country close to her heart.

Gemma graduated from Solent this July with a first-class degree and is now looking to go into postgraduate study while applying for marketing roles in the meantime. Find out more about business management and marketing at Solent here.