Pulling my purple student ambassador hoodie on again last autumn felt like sliding into an old pair of shoes: comfortable in an instant, on a rather different person than the one who’d laced them up a decade earlier. I was back after a career in digital marketing to start an MSc in Digital Transformation, a subject that barely had a name when I left with my first degree.

After a decade of digital and social media campaigns for global clients like Nestlé and British Council, I wanted to move from executing other people’s strategy to building it. The programme sat exactly at that intersection of strategy, technology and organisational change I was curious about, so I applied one evening and had an offer by the next morning.

I was ready for the challenge of postgraduate study and next-level independent learning. As an undergraduate, the reading lists and essay prompts do a lot of the thinking for you. Here, you have to spot the gaps in the literature yourself, decide which framework earns its place in your argument, then turn around and critique the very framework you just defended. We juggled several substantive projects at once. Each required a different kind of thinking, and staying sharp across all of them made me more organised.

I enjoyed how applied and practical the course actually was, even when the workload didn’t let up. Our year-long consultancy capstone paired us with a real client, Datel, and had us pitching ERP migration recommendations that had to impress an actual business, not just our lecturers. After an in-person Google AI Studio workshop on campus, I was able to build a working prototype to bring my group’s solution to life myself.

Pitching our solution to Datel’s leadership in our final showcase is still one of my favourite moments of the year. I’d spent a decade presenting to senior stakeholders in my old career, so before we went in, I coached my team of non-native English speakers on posture, pace and how to hold a room, and they nailed it. After pitching, the panel asked us whether we’d enjoyed working on the project. Judging by the grins around the room, the answer wasn’t really in doubt, and we came away from that showcase with a solid distinction – still the moment I’m proudest of from the whole degree.

Alongside all of it, I applied for a part-time marketing assistant role at the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre to earn a bit of money. I spent evenings filming and editing footage from their pitches and sessions, watching fellow students stand up and defend ideas they’d built from nothing. I went in expecting to edit some decent reels but came out seriously wondering whether I might want to build something of my own one day.

My purple hoodie sits folded in my wardrobe now, and now that my course is over, I’m glad I got to keep that one part of my postgraduate student life. I also cherish the great rapport I built with my peers, lecturers and industry partners. They’ve all expressed high hopes for me, and I’m grateful for the fuel the master’s has given me to forge ahead with the exciting opportunities in the world of digital transformation. 

Written by Kennetha, a current postgraduate student in AMBS. 

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