I applied to the masters’ programme because I wanted to deepen my expertise and further underpin my knowledge and experience with the latest theory. Internal comms is such an undervalued and underrecognised field of expertise, especially here in Finland where I am from. I really want to advocate for our profession and what better way to boost that than to get the only masters’ dedicated to internal comms. I hope to put these learnings into use not just in my own work but in developing the profession and discipline within Finland overall.
I’m now halfway through my masters’ and while it is tough work, I definitely find it worth it. This programme is such a resource bank: reading lists validated by industry pros, excellent and supportive tutors, access to a wide range of online resources, a brilliant librarian to help with searching for information, and of course my cohort mates that now are my best IC friends.
It’s a positive problem to find all of the reading so interesting it can be hard to focus. Studying while working requires quite some discipline to keep yourself focused on the task at hand. To tackle this, I keep myself a reading list of all the books and articles I’ve encountered that I want to come back to after finishing the masters.
The programme is well designed. The modules are interlinked, everything you study links back to your work, you get to use the experience you’ve gained before and no matter how much you know, you will get new insights, new perspectives and validate what you already knew. The programme challenges you but for sure will also boost your professional assurance.
Having a background in studying business, I particularly value the way in which the programme helps you to build your organisational understanding and the environment you operate in. Through the studies you gain a profound understanding of your organisation and choosing an approach that makes sense in your unique position. This also makes studying flexible in the sense that you do it your way. You can tweak the focus to the things that are most relevant to you, match the assignments to your needs and plan studies to fit your life situation.
For anyone thinking of applying, I say: figure out what drives you – and do it. For me, the drive is to grow as a professional in order to further develop and champion the internal comms discipline.
