When Junfang ‘Jun’ Hu met a representative from Flinders University in Shanghai, she knew that Flinders was the kind of place that would allow her to kickstart her dream career in business.
Now Jun is less than a year away from graduating with a Master of Business and Marketing. In her time at Flinders, she has learnt about the cutting edge of marketing, gained real-world experience, and has gotten to know beautiful Adelaide like a local.
“Flinders Uni not only teaches us professional knowledge and skills,” Jun says, “it also provides networking and industry opportunities.”
By studying marketing at Flinders, Jun has an education that has focussed around leading industry ideas, making her skillset more desirable to future employers.
Dreaming of studying in Australia
Jun was interested in attending an overseas university to study.
“When I attended a Flinders University meeting in Shanghai, I was impressed by the introduction and simulation classes provided by Flinders Uni,” she says. Jun feels lucky that she got the chance to meet the people from Flinders and that she had an open mind, which made her decide to pursue her education at Flinders.
Shanghai is a city of 26 million people compared to Adelaide’s 1 million – so it was a big change. But Jun loves the lifestyle that she leads while she is living and studying in South Australia.
State-of-the-art facilities
Flinders University’s main campus at Bedford Park is only 12km south of Adelaide’s centre. The campus is defined by wide-open spaces, and the elevated site means that Bedford Park offers panoramic views of the coast and Adelaide city. Designed to encourage collaboration between students, The Hub at Flinders is a flexible learning space, where students can come together to work on projects.
Jun highly values this approach to learning and maintains that it is helping her, and her fellow students get the best results, saying that, “the case studies and research groups work really well.”
The state-of-the-art facilities at Bedford Park include a library, retail stores, cafes and restaurants, and a gym where you can exercise with a view of the pristine blue ocean. For a student like Jun, it is good to study in a city that promotes a great lifestyle. “I really enjoy the food,” Jun says, “especially the seafood and the wine from South Australia.”
“Do not miss out on the activities from the uni or around town,” she adds.
Benefit from industry connections
The Flinders community isn’t only restricted to the university campus. Strong relationships between Flinders University and industry experts means that students have the opportunity to gain real experience in the workforce while they study.
“This practical experience in the industry placement is a significant piece of a student’s portfolio,” says Jun, as it helps students find work after graduation and graduate future-ready.
Jun adds that in addition to the “professional knowledge,” students learn in class, “Flinders Uni provides networking and industry opportunities and skills,” by leveraging these industry connections.
Graduate future-ready
In Australia, the marketing industry is growing faster than the rest of the overall workforce, as in other parts of the world. Students like Jun will have many opportunities open to them when they graduate.
This also means that the industry is highly competitive. Students need to focus on developing core skills to be selected for the best jobs. Jun knows this, so she has done a lot of extra work to stay competitive.
“I attend professional workshops and industry meetings once a while, as well as working a part-time job I got through my placement.”
To help Jun get ahead, a Master of Business Marketing at Flinders University delivers course material based on industry best practices. Building on a related undergraduate field, this course dives deep into the principles of market research, how to segment and identify target markets, develop price strategies, and more.
The whole course focuses on preparing you for your dream career, by focussing on the things that businesses value. This means much of the course is dedicated to understanding customer wants and needs, and training you to be an expert business communicator.
Jun said that she has already seen how valuable the course has been, and has used it to impress people in a work environment.
“The marketing placement gave me a chance,” she says. “It pushed me to think in a genuine business setting, using knowledge from the course.”
For anyone interested in pursuing a career in marketing, Jun can’t recommend Flinders highly enough.
If you would like to study in Australia and learn more about studying Business at Flinders University, you can browse our courses or enquire with our friendly team here.
Want more? Meet Ebrahem Asiri, who is studying International Business at Flinders.
