Chris Foley (Class of 2020) is an Account Manager and Digital Marketing specialist at Pinterest. Chris works with SMBs across Asia-Pacific, activating Pinterest's advertising solutions to reach customers worldwide.
My undergraduate degree is in Psychology (UCD), but after working in a marketing role post-graduation I decided that the corporate world was more up my street. However, I somewhat felt that my non-business undergraduate degree was holding me back when applying for certain jobs.
It’s such a competitive job market and a lot of companies set a requirement for applicants to have a related university degree, which often meant I was eliminated at the first hurdle. I knew I needed to take on a masters programme that would give me the credibility to go for the top entry-level jobs at multinational companies. This is when I set my sights on Trinity Business School.
Trinity as a university carries weight worldwide, but this wasn't the ultimate driver of my decision. The key for me was that the Trinity Business School appeared to have fresh momentum - a brand-new building, a newly designed academic programme suited to the modern professional landscape, and academic professors with industry experience. Taking all of this into consideration, it ticked a lot of boxes over other similar programmes and having now completed the course, I feel 100% vindicated in this decision.
For someone coming from a non-business background it was a brilliant crash course in all things digital marketing. It covered the fundamental elements of creating a digital marketing strategy plan, as well as giving us an insight into emerging industry trends. Hard skills aside, it has also really helped me in terms of the network it created. Alumni of the programme regularly reach out regarding job referral opportunities within their organisations, and this is how I found my current role.
I also loved that the programme was aimed towards practical industry knowledge. It's definitely more of a professional programme rather than one focused on academic research, and the lecturers had really impressive industry knowledge to share with us.
There are so many fantastic universities in Ireland and all with stellar academic programmes. But for me, Trinity is in a league of its own in terms of the actual campus itself, the rich history of the university and the global reach it has in terms of its academic reputation. This aside, I would say that this course delivers ‘exactly as it says on the tin’. The game plan for me was to invest in myself by gaining relevant skills and academic knowledge, and to land an exciting social media job in Dublin thereafter. Thankfully this is exactly how it all played out!
