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.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ve 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\u2019d come and take my university degree in the UK.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018In China, people like football but there aren\u2019t many good teams. My friends and I were always obsessed with UK football \u2013 we even started our own business, a football bar! The UK was the best place to get access to a dream job in football.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After researching courses, Jiwei came across many testimonials for Kent and was intrigued by the university.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I found lots of people on Linked in and was impressed with what I read. One even worked for Manchester United!\u2019 he laughs. \u2018The Business (top up) course seemed to offer a really generic overview of business to strengthen my study before I take the next step.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jiwei chose to move to the centre of Canterbury last year with friends and commute to campus for his course.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018One of the reasons why I chose Kent was because of the city. Canterbury is so historical. It\u2019s such an experience for me. I love the Cathedral and Westgate Gardens.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Topics 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.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve also loved the leadership and management topics, as I\u2019ve always seen myself as a natural leader and it has helped me to build these skills into something I can offer professionally.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve learned how to manage my own time, to think about what kind of thing I’m really going to do in my life. I\u2019ve also been able to learn about different cultures \u2013 both British culture and all the other diverse cultures who study at Kent.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n