Published on 30 October 2017
A graduate has taken her learning from the classroom and into the boardroom – and found the practical skills she learnt invaluable.
Talia Muncaster graduated with a degree in Business and Applied Management in July, and is just months into her job as a Digital Marketing Assistant at North Shields software development company Wubbleyou.
Starting a new job fresh out of the classroom can be daunting for any young person, but University of Sunderland graduate Talia found her experience and the teaching she received made her more than ready to take on the challenge.
30 October marks the beginning of the Northern Powerhouse’s Skills Week, a week of activity that aims to showcase the talents and skills of people working and living in the North.
Talia, 22, from Peterlee, was so impressed that she wrote to her former lecturer, and to thank him for one particular piece of work.
“I wrote to Alan Charlesworth to thank him for all of his help. When I started my first job as a Graduate Digital Marketing Assistant at Wubbleyou I noticed that my day-to-day tasks are very similar to Alan’s Internet Marketing class. The skills I learned really helped me manage the online marketing for my company as well as clients' companies.
“His book 'Digital Marketing: A Practical Approach' really helped me begin my career in digital marketing – it was written from a real practical perspective.”
As well as the classroom time Talia had at Sunderland, she also spent a year overseas in the USA, working at White Lodgings Services in Austin, Texas, which, she says, she found it helped make her confident and work-ready after graduation.
Alan Charlesworth, Senior Lecture in Marketing at the University, says: “Employability is a key aspect of our programmes, and we focus on the practical application of skills concepts and models rather than just debating pure theory.”
Alan has been involved in the ‘new’ discipline of digital marketing since 1996 – and Talia is the latest in a long line of students now working in this growing field.
He added: “The irony is that my students now know far more than me in their specialist areas. Things move so fast that you are always a student of digital marketing, never a master.”
Over the next six months the Northern Powerhouse is launching a series of themed weeks focused on boosting the local economy by investing in education and skills, enterprise and innovation, connectivity and transport, quality of life, and trade and investment.
Skills Week (30 October to 3 November) will see HM Government work with stakeholders across the region to identify good practice in these core areas, to show how collectively we are making the Northern Powerhouse a reality.