Are you in the process of choosing a business master’s course? Are you unsure which of our 17 courses is right for you? We’ve got some guidance on how to go about making this important decision, with insight from students and staff.
1. Pin down your motivations – what do you want to get out of your master’s?
Before applying, you should spend some time considering your motivations and clarifying your learning goals by considering these questions:
- What subject do you want to be intensely studying for 12 months?
- What do you want this master’s to qualify you for?
- How will this master’s contribute to your CV and how will it help you reach your career goals?
- Which area of business do you enjoy reading about the most?
2. Chat to a current student on the course
Our Unibuddy feature allows you to speak to a current student on the course, and therefore gain valuable insight into life at AMBS and the course you’re interested in.
3. Consider special features of each course – what are the USPs?
At Alliance MBS, we strive to go the extra mile to offer our master’s students more than just classroom learning.
MSc Business Analysis and Strategic Management offers you the chance to participate in a client-facing consultancy project, where in place of writing a dissertation, you will work with a company over the summer before completing a report based on your work.
Read about one student’s experience of the client-facing project >>
Students studying finance and accounting-related courses have the chance to take part in a 5-day Trading Boot Camp, which runs every year in partnership with Amplify Trading. They offer training to some of the world’s largest financial institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank and have developed specialist software that enables students to experience a live trading floor. Two experienced traders deliver the weeklong workshop in the summer period, giving the students taking part a practical platform in which to apply the knowledge they have gained through the year.
MSc Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations and MSc International Human Resource Management and Comparative Industrial Relations students can participate in the Human Resource Management Conference for a chance to complete a group case study before presenting it to industry professionals, who also take part in a panel Q&A.
To see what each course can offer you outside of the classroom, take a look at its course details.
4. Do your research - look over the course unit details for the courses you’re interested in
It’s absolutely vital that you understand exactly what you can and will be studying on each master’s course to ensure that it is right for you and for what you want to get out of the subject.
The best way to do this is to go to the ‘Course Details’ section on each of the course web pages, which is where all mandatory and elective units are listed. It will also detail the research opportunities for that course. By clicking on each of the course units, you will be able to see the teaching staff, reading list, assessment methods and learning outcomes.
MSc Management graduate Rahul Thati says, “Assessing what kind of job position or role you want to achieve can be one of the important factors in finalising which course to pursue. Thorough research on what the day-to-day life of job roles looks like and in what kind of industry you are looking at could be a great place to start the research. The course content specifications can be looked at in great detail to make you aware of what exactly is going to be taught and how they will help you to achieve your dreams.”
5. Define your career goals
By clarifying where you want to be in your career, you will be able to narrow down the master’s courses that will help you get there.
You will have access to the dedicated Alliance MBS Postgraduate Careers Service that will support you in your search for graduate jobs and schemes by offering one-to-one consultations, webinars, and application and CV advice.
Reading information about graduate destinations for each course will give you an idea of the kind of routes you could take with each course, although these documents are by no means exhaustive.
With the dedicated Alliance MBS Postgraduate Careers Service, The University of Manchester Careers Service and the fact the University is the no. 1 most targeted university in the UK by top graduate employers (High Fliers Report 2022), you are well supported in your career goals, whatever they may be.
