December 18th, 2014 | Uncategorized
The first semester of my masters in Sports Management is complete and I enjoyed every, or at least most every, second of it. There is one thing I can’t understand. Why is the actual finals period after the holiday break? Fortunately, I only have a finance final, and it is in the second week of the finals period. The educational experience was a stark difference from my psychology major at Davidson College, a small liberal arts school. Everything I was learning at Ulster University was very much applied. This was quite a change, and change is not always a bad thing. I really enjoyed this new educational experience.
In finance, we had an opportunity to analyze two businesses of our choosing. My group picked EasyJet and Roche. We evaluated annual reports, financial statements and ratios from the last two years before constructing a detailed report. In Sport Policy, we learned about the various roles of policy makers and how they generally focus on the development of sport or the development through sport. The course concluded with group presentations and proposals for funding to run a sports program.
The third and final module was enterprise and creative ventures. The basic premise of this module was that each group got £100 and had to come up with a business idea and make money. Generally, groups focused around Christmas themes, as the trade day was in December. My group decided to develop something independent of Christmas. This led us to create a viable business which we then partnered with a large corporation with a location on campus that reaches over 10 million people annually. (I will elaborate more on this business in my next blog). It was a great application of the applied knowledge I’ve learned while being here.
Victory Scholar: Ryan Ansel
Sport League: Atlantic 10
Present University: University of Ulster
Alma Mater: Davidson University