To be honest I haven’t finished it yet! I’ve attended all the lectures at Salford Uni, but I’ve only taken two of the four exams so far. They’re pretty flexible at Salford and are happy for you to study the Diploma over 2 years if that’s what you want. I might even go back and sit though the lectures for the modules I haven’t completed again this September (they don’t charge you twice which is very nice of them).

It’s not too bad, but it’s not huge fun either. You have to study 4 modules in total and Mike (our tutor) estimated the whole course was equivalent to about half of the final year of a BA (Hons) degree - so 15 credits for each module at Level HE6. I have to confess all I did each week was attend the lectures (4 hours on a Monday evening) and maybe read the corresponding chapters in the study workbook on a Saturday morning (1-2 hours) if I could be bothered. I didn’t do any of the optional homework. However, this meant I had to spend a whole week cramming 8 hours a day just to pass one exam. This was very unpleasant and I don’t recommend doing it this way. Besides I don’t think you really get the most out of the course just memorising as much as you can for the exam.

Nearly everyone I did the course with did two exams in December and two in June, but most of them said that they wished they’d done what I did - one exam each time. If you’re not in a hurry, and wherever you’re thinking of studying the course is OK with you taking two years, then I’d do the exams over two years. You can perhaps attend all the lectures in one year because all the modules are interlinked and feed into one another, and also because then you can pick which order to sit the exams in.

The exams are quite hard - the pass mark is 50% and lots of folk fail. However, the CIM is happy for you to resit any exam as many times as you like (at £55 a pop). I suspect I failed the exam I sat in June but if so, no worries, I can attempt it again in December. And it won’t take nearly as much revising this time!!

The people on my course who did best studied around 8-12 hours per week on the course (including the lectures). Obviously this would be 4-6 hours if you’re only doing one module at a time. Then you’d only need 4 days for revision and I reckon you’d do really well in the exam. I think that’s managable with a full-time job, mouths to feed and a house to run.

I think one of the mistakes I made was to try and do a whole chapter of the study book at a time which takes anywhere between 3 and 8 hours. Just doing a hour at a time and coming back to it later would have been much more manageable.

The trouble with the exams is you can’t question spot - you have to learn everything because the questions each have several parts drawn from all over the syllabus. You might know two parts of the question inside out and absolutely nothing about the third part making it hard to gain a pass mark. It does test your knowledge of marketing though.

If you’ve studied Business Studies or Marketing before then the course seems to be easier - you’ll already know a lot of the jargon. I found the first 8 weeks of the course really hard because I was a biologist by training and knew nothing of business studies speak. Mike the tutor drummed the basic ideas into us all each week though, going over and over concepts like SMART and Gantt Charts etc. I still found reading a core textbook from the Professional Certificate really useful though as it gave the background to the higher level study on this course in easy to understand language.

It’s fair to say that the CIM study books that accompany the course are dreadful - badly written and badly edited. However, 99% of what you need to know is in these books so they are indispensible and essential for passing the course. The lectures give you enough knowledge to understand what’s in the books, but don’t cover anywhere near everything you need to know. You’ve just got the learn the books from cover to cover and practice lots of exam questions. The books get sold out on Amazon in mid-September so order them early. The CIM always have them in stock but charge full price. The little spiral bound revision guides are really good though and well worth buying - they get down to the bones of what you need to know so you don’t get sidetracked and spend too much time learning peripheral stuff.

Rather than writing essays in the exam you usually write mock formal reports as though you’re writing a report for your boss or a brief to another company. It takes a while to get used to the style, but it makes them a bit more interesting. I rather liked that about the exams.

It is possible to do the course by coursework. I’m not sure which is best - I know people who say the coursework route is better because it’s less stressful, but other folk say it eats up even more of your time because the coursework has to be fabulous to gain a passing mark. I’m more of an exam girl myself but you may be the opposite.

Anyway I hope all this info is vaguely helpful to you. I do think having the qualification opens doors - certainly nearly all the marketing related jobs I’ve seen advertised specify the CIM Prof Dip or above. And the course is quite applied - you do learn how to do stuff like write a brief for an ad agency, how to project manage, and how to write a questionnaire. Bits of the course are actually really interesting. But then bits of it are impossibly dull. It all depends on how determined you are really.

Christine

thanks for taking the time to post your Wiltshire holiday. your photos were superb!

Traveling Texan
Merilynn

Nope, I’ve afraid I haven’t done Wynnats Pass, but it sounds good! I love big hills - always have since I was a kid. We had two fab ones near where I grew up in Yorkshire and our old Land Rover really struggled to get up them - it was always an event.

My Smart has a 700cc engine, but since the car is so light I reckon it’s the equivalent of at least a 1.1 in a small four seater. I used to have a ‘top of the range’ Rover Metro 1.3 (tongue very firmly in cheek), and driving the Smart is not dissimilar. I loved my Metro and I love my Smart even more. It just has so much personality and folk are always surprised how fast it’ll go. I bomb up and down the motorway, zip around town, nip into parking spaces that won’t fit any other car - it’s just fab! Plus it’s just sooo cute.

Are you thinking of getting one?

Jo

On the up side though I see a lot of jobs that specifically ask for marketing qualifications and the CIM Diploma does seem to be highly regarded. It’s also a very applied course - I now find myself critically appraising TV ads/junk mail etc and trying to work out what sort of marketing mix they are using and how they could improve it.

I’m doing the course at the University of Salford - I started in September and you do two modules before Christmas and two modules from February to June. But you can also start in February and finish at Christmas. Obviously doing it from home is another option.

I have to confess I wasn’t prepared at all for studying this course - I’ve never studied marketing before - I used to be a biologist. I found the first few weeks really hard because all the terminology was completely new. I did buy a basic textbook recommended for the CIM Professional Certificate (Essentials of Marketing by Jim Blythe) which really helped - it gave me the basics and a nice glossary - I would strongly recommend reading this or something similar before commiting yourself to the course. If you find this textbook really dull then you’ll need masses of determination to get through the course - if you quite like reading it then that’s a good start.

The really tricky bit is trying to study whilst working full-time - there just aren’t enough hours in the day or energy in the tank. I’ve found that almost impossible to balance, but then I work a lot of overtime which doesn’t help.

Basically you have to learn everything in the workbook for each module. The workbooks contain between 8 and 12 units each and each unit probably takes about 6-12 hours to completely learn well enough to pass the exam (I’m not sure if you do exams or if you do it by coursework on the home study version of the course??). It’s a lot of work (10-12 hours per week per two units I reckon plus revision time). Strangely the units towards the front of the book seem much harder and longer than the units towards the back of the book. I’ve heard that you get lots more stuff to read on the home study version although I haven’t seen it for myself.

I confess I only did one of the exams before Christmas. I didn’t put enough effort in over the 12 weeks prior to the exams (I only did 4 hours per week - ie I turned up to lectures). I had to take a week off work to cram all the rest and discovered I only had time to learn one of the two modules. I’m now faced with taking 3 exams in June or sticking with 2 and doing the other next December. That is the one great thing though - you can resit each exam as many times as possible.

Now all this may seem very negative, but the problems I’ve had with the course have largely been of my own making - I underestimated how much time it would take up and how steep the learning curve would be. Now I’ve got to grips with a lot of the terminology and understand what I’m going to be faced with next term I feel confident that I’ll be able to to 2 if not all 3 of my exams next June. They do design the exams so that you have to learn everything though - it’s impossible to question spot.

As for whether it’s do-able by homestudy I wouldn’t like to say. Personally I don’t think I’d manage it - I’m far too lazy and besides it’s great to have the reassurance of classmates all confessing they don’t understand either and have a tutor on hand to answer questions and mark mock exams for you. I’ve done OU courses - but these are short and they are more of a hobby. I’m really glad I’m studying it with other people.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Let me know if you want to know anything more.