The Student Room Group

Changing course mid uni. How should I adjust my year abroad & career plans?

Hi all,

I'm an undergraduate student at a Russell Group university studying BA French. Initially I enrolled to study French & Arabic, but after failing Arabic in first year and deciding I no longer wanted to study it near the end of my retake year I will be continuing on into 2nd year in September studying straight French and I'm due to graduate in 2022.

Alongside university, I do freelance work mainly centered around sport and sports media/broadcast. I've been working in sports media freelance since I was 16 and I'm 20 now (turning 21 this year), and in that time I've achieved a lot and progressed each year. I've done a lot of football coaching and some scouting too, but I've fallen off a little in that area since starting university.

This summer I've been reflecting a lot on my career plans and academic future after dropping Arabic. I'm glad I chose to do languages because I love that my degree basically encompasses all of the humanities and I'll also benefit from the usefulness and employability of speaking two languages. I want to keep my options open in terms of a career because I have a wide variety of interests and being able to do lots of different things keeps me engaged, so I want to make myself as employable and experienced as possible in the sports media, performance sport, sports management and general media industries.

I've always wanted to a masters degree once I'm done with my bachelors anyway, but now it seems even more important that I do one. But what do I do a masters in? What type of experience should I be looking to gain outside of university? And how can I make my year abroad as effective as possible?

In terms of the media stuff I was thinking I should just continue doing what I'm doing in sports media, but also try to get experience in other areas such as music, culture and news, because at the moment my CV is very sports heavy and I don't want to pigeonhole myself. At the moment most of it is broadcast/streaming focused too, so I'd love to gain more radio and journalism experience. Of course I have to be realistic in terms of how much time I commit, so most of that will be during the summers in between university rather than during term time. But because of all that, I don't think there'd be any point doing a media related masters?

Getting the right experience in performance sport and sports management is a bit more difficult for me. In hindsight I would've loved to study French & Sports Science as an undergrad (my uni allows you to combine any two subjects) then do a Sports Management masters, but my A-Level subjects mean I wouldn't have been able to do Sports Science anyway. How do I get sufficient experience and qualifications in those two areas to be able to forge a career in them? I've been looking into doing a masters in Sports Management in the UK and then maybe doing one related to sports performance or sports science in the US (due to the placement opportunities I'd have with the collegiate sports teams), but I'd obviously need to have sufficient qualifications to get onto that course.

Apologies for the essay, just a lot of stuff I've been mulling over and not really spoken openly about. All thoughts and advice appreciated!

TL;DR - 2nd year BA French student who works in sports media, but also interested in other areas of the media, sports performance and sports business. Definitely want to do a masters. To keep my options open, how can I ensure I finish my education with sufficient experience and qualifications in all those areas?
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