A typical week at Cranfield

I am studying the Food Chain Systems MSc at Cranfield. I started my masters here in October 2018, directly after graduating from Cardiff Metropolitan University with a Food Science and Technology BSc (Hons). I have been focused on making my career in the food industry which led me to my undergraduate degree. To gain further knowledge and expertise, I decided to come to Cranfield for a masters. I came across the details of the course and spoke to people in the industry and lecturers at Cardiff Met; everyone had good things to say about Cranfield and this led me to make my choice of studying here.

The Food Chain Resilience module was very different compared to the other modules we have had so far. The lectures were delivered by Cranfield School of Management staff and it was beneficial to see a different viewpoint and approach to the industry that I want to build my career in. The module was interactively delivered with class exercises, group presentations and games. I learnt many new words and concepts about supply chain management that are specific for food. Being from a science background, I had not come across many of the ideas before and probably would have not come across them until I stepped up in my career.

The classes were mixed with students from Future Food Sustainability which helped us to get different viewpoints and ideas in class discussion. As all modules, we had one week of lectures which were very well flowing and had to do a group presentation based on a case study of industry giants like Tesco, Aldi and Lidl. We only had a short time for this and worked late into the night (as seen in picture). However this was very informative and we received formative feedback to help improve our presentation skills. The week of teaching was followed by one week for our assignment which was interesting to write as it does not require a scientific style of writing. The assignment was also very quick to do and is the first one that I have finished well before the deadline, giving me a few days to relax before we start the next module.

Overall, I have enjoyed this module a lot and would look forward to doing something similar again. I am very positive that I will be using a lot of this module in my career going forward!