University News Last updated 09 August 2019
Recently Birmingham City University celebrated the hard work and commitment of students graduating from our MA Design Management course in Hong Kong.
Eight graduates with their families travelled across the world to attend the graduation ceremony at Symphony Hall, later followed by a tour of Parkside building with Head of School, Professor Kevin Singh.
After several years of preparation, the course was launched in January 2017. It is the first UK Master’s in Design Management in Hong Kong (HK) offering a multi-disciplinary programme aimed at ambitious designers and non-designers working in the design industry, who want to accelerate their careers by gaining an insight in core design disciplines and business strategies.
Led by highly respected industry professionals in both Hong Kong and the UK, the course has a distinctive professional focus and embraces business management, marketing, design strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, design leadership and design practice including project management, intellectual property law and finance.
MA Design Management Course Director Caroline Norman and Senior Lecturer Nick Irvin share the teaching with HK colleagues and regularly travel to HK to deliver lectures. They support teaching online with Moodle and conduct both tutorials and some assessments online while based in the UK.
“We have a great relationship with the very experienced HK tutors, while the teaching visits are hard work, very intense in fact, both Nick and I thoroughly enjoy working in HK” Course Director Caroline Norman.
Graduate David said that gaining knowledge in communication strategies across design and business disciplines has been the most beneficial aspect of the course to his career.
Commenting on what’s the best aspect of the course, Clarice Tin said:
"I really enjoyed the seminars where everyone could engage critically and creatively by discussing the real-world challenges. It made the course a lot more interactive - we were able to see live examples of the industry and see how theory we have learnt on the course can be applied in practice."
The course is designed for both design and non-design professionals and prepares graduates for a careers in design and brand consultancies, in-house design and marketing department as designers, design managers, project and account managers, buyers and marketing communication managers.
"I knew that with this degree in my pocket there are bigger chances for a promotion in the digital banking company I work for. I was interested to see how I can help my company to increase the profit by targeting the right market and bringing innovative ideas. With my newly gained knowledge in marketing strategy I will be able to set higher goals and climb up the ladder." Ka ling (MCLing) Mak.
"The course, modules and teaching are the same in HK as the UK but with some minor adaptations to reflect the Hong Kong context. During the summer of 2017 we brought together both the UK and HK students in collaboration with Lancaster University and we’re keen to facilitate more shared learning and networking opportunities between the two locations." Course Director Caroline Norman.