Justine Bigland

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Administration Manager, University of Cumbria

What attracted you to the MSc in Leadership Practice and Responsibility?  I had a desire to undertake postgraduate study that would enable me to generally broaden my understanding of leadership and management issues whilst allowing me to directly inform my current work role and employer.  The ability to tailor some assessment around current work projects was very appealing as it means I can use the study to directly inform my work practice.

What are you hoping to gain from the programme? As well as a postgraduate qualification I am hoping the programme will develop my leadership and management skills to enhance my ability to undertake my current role and prepare me for future professional advancement.

How are you finding the programme so far? I am hugely enjoying the challenge of postgraduate study within a very supportive environment.  The use of online lectures has been really useful, as it allows me to return to particular sessions as many times as I need to and the ability to still meet with fellow students, virtually, has really helped us to develop a group ethos so we can, and do, support each other with specific things if and when we need to. 

The initial reflection on my own leadership practice and how this has developed has enabled me to further consider how I wish to develop and helped me to steer and improve some of my leadership practice.  Additionally, the module on change is proving incredibly useful in allowing me to understand more fully the change processes being utilised in my work place and ensuring I can engage appropriately with them.

The Panoptos have been really useful as a tool that I can return to again and again, and WebEx sessions have been great as they enable me to engage with fellow students as well as the staff.  The e-library resources are excellent and it’s easy to search and find relevant material.  As a group, we have used the online discussant groups less and the fact that we are not using them very much is a reflection that the WebEx and action learning sets are working really well in keeping us in touch and engaged with each other.  I also think the assessment elements that require us to engage are also really useful for this.