Jiwei Pei is from China and has moved to Kent to study our Business (top up) Course at the Canterbury Campus with aspirations to work in football management. Here, we caught up with him to find out more about his studies and his plans for the future.
‘I’ve always wanted to study in the UK because I’m a huge football fan. When I was just eight years old, I fell in love with Manchester United and the Premier League. From that moment on, I knew one day I’d come and take my university degree in the UK.’
Jiwei studied business in China for his USQA, a similar qualification to A-Level and harboured a desire to get into sports management, ideally in football.
‘In China, people like football but there aren’t many good teams. My friends and I were always obsessed with UK football – we even started our own business, a football bar! The UK was the best place to get access to a dream job in football.’
After researching courses, Jiwei came across many testimonials for Kent and was intrigued by the university.
‘I found lots of people on Linked in and was impressed with what I read. One even worked for Manchester United!’ he laughs. ‘The Business (top up) course seemed to offer a really generic overview of business to strengthen my study before I take the next step.’
Jiwei chose to move to the centre of Canterbury last year with friends and commute to campus for his course.
‘One of the reasons why I chose Kent was because of the city. Canterbury is so historical. It’s such an experience for me. I love the Cathedral and Westgate Gardens.’
After studying for eight months, Jiwei has been pleasantly surprised by some of the areas of business that are taught on the course and how interesting they have been.
‘Topics like Operations Management have given me a different perspective, I thought I knew everything about business but this course was something new and really important whatever line of business you go into. The tutor is from Malaysia and a similar culture to me, his seminars have been great.
‘I’ve also loved the leadership and management topics, as I’ve always seen myself as a natural leader and it has helped me to build these skills into something I can offer professionally.’
Jiwei feels he has built many transitional skills over his top up course and hopes to take them with him as he prepares for a future in Sports Management over here.
‘I’ve learned how to manage my own time, to think about what kind of thing I’m really going to do in my life. I’ve also been able to learn about different cultures – both British culture and all the other diverse cultures who study at Kent.’
By Charlotte North