I absolutely loved my experience attending this program. I am a marketing major pursuing a career in sports. When I first learned of the program, I was thrilled for an opportunity to learn about the business side of sports. I was nervous, though, as I didn't know much about soccer. I wanted to attend because it's not every day that you get the opportunity to learn the business of a sport under the guidance of a team like Man City. I quickly realized I had no reason to be nervous, as there were multiple other people in the same boat, and it never felt like I was at a disadvantage because of it. We had three major assignments, and we were graded on attendance and participation. The first was a group presentation, which we worked on throughout the program and presented on the last day. The other two were writing assignments, which were due a few days after the program ended. I enjoyed this because it allowed us to use our free time instead of rushing to finish our assignments. Some of my favorite memories came during our weekends when nothing was actually planned. A group of us traveled to Preston to watch a friendly between them and Liverpool, a watch party to see England win the UEFA Women’s Euro final, and even organized an overnight trip to Spain with some others in the program. It’s almost guaranteed that one of the classes or guest lecturers will not be of much interest to you, given the range of business topics we discuss. But their insights will still be invaluable, and their lectures still engaging.
What would you improve about this program?
It is critical to note that while Manchester City has previously run its Next Gen program, I attended the inaugural Man City Summer Collegiate program. So while there are definitely some things I would improve, they may already be working to address some of the issues I noticed. We had class inside the Etihad Stadium three times during the program, and then we toured a part of the stadium. We got to see a lot of behind-the-scenes, and this was one of my favorite parts of the program. During our last visit to the stadium, we were supposed to tour the media studios where they film promotions for the team. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to, as a player had just been signed and they needed to film content for the team’s media. While this was understandable, I was disappointed that we wouldn’t see it and couldn’t help but wish that the tour had been scheduled for one of our prior two trips.
