What I love about Westminster Business School is that you meet such interesting and different people everyday from all walks of life – both amongst the academic staff and the student body. Meeting Diana was a pleasure, we share a love for London and it’s always fun bumping into her on campus! Here’s my interview with Diana. –
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
- My name is Diana Huth and I am refreshingly different.
- I’m German – I love my bread, a good sausage and I am ambitious.
- I am highly motivated in whatever I start doing and I love a great challenge.
- Nothing is impossible and everything can work out if you are passionate enough.
- I’m passionate about food. I’m a psychologist and on course to a first in Media Production.
How does that go together?
Easily.
Psychology is everywhere. It’s the way we walk and talk, the way we see and be. My experience as a counseling psychologist at a rehabilitation clinic for orthopedic and cancer patients has taught me many lessons. However, the most striking was that everyone has issues at some point. The difference is that not many people are brave enough to talk about them. Many of my patients lived a tough life; their physical conditions had a serious impact on their quality of life. Yet most of them were more concerned about the usual problems: love, family and work.
If you ask me, deep down inside we aren’t that different. We might have different tastes, some love chocolate, other prefer vanilla – I love both!
Nowadays, what we like and dislike is often determined by good marketing or advertising. The secret of success is often linked to psychology, great planning and positioning and creative media ideas. Thus, Psychology and Media blend quite well together (in Marketing).
What brought you to Westminster Business School?
Maybe rather Uni of Westminster as I also have one module in Harrow 😉
When I was looking for Universities around London in September, the University of Westminster was actually the first I visited. Immediately, I had a good feeling. The student services were very organized and everyone was very ambitious to hand me over to the right contact. The Education Abroad office, especially Nicola Lyne, did a great job and I was impressed by the varieties of modules the University of Westminster offered. It was great to see I could pick a range of modules that related to all the areas I am interested in: psychology (The Role of the Manager), Media (Advertising -where we were supposed to create an advert) and marketing (Marketing Communications).
The University of Westminster and the Westminster Business School have a great reputation and I like Westminster council with both, its traditional and modern sides and sights.
In addition, I really liked the layout of the prospectus. As it is part of the University’s marketing, it did matter.
How does it differ from teachings in Germany?
Read, read and read is my advice for German students coming to England. The amount of pages that you are supposed to read in England is much higher. Depending on the home university you study at, the University of Westminster can be quite scary because of its size. When I studied Psychology at the Ruhr-University Bochum, I got used to big (grey) buildings, so I wasn’t really scared. However, when I compare the University of Westminster to my current University, the University of Applied Sciences Ostwestfalen-Lippe (HS-OWL), it is massive! Although the HS-OWL has four different campuses, compared to Westminster, it feels tiny.
However, I sometimes miss the personal warmth that my home university offers. On that note, I was very surprised how much the professors at Westminster care. I had several enriching conversations with my module leaders that I did not expect to come up as Westminster has that many students.
I like the fact that Westminster students are often thrown in the deep end, especially as the majority turns out to be quite good swimmers. Particularly, the “pitches” (reality like sales presentations) were very exciting. They are a great opportunities to practice your presentation skills and we often got helpful feedback.
Another great experience was the module “The Role of the Manager”. Both, the module leader Dr Christine Porter and my seminar tutor Angela Hetherington did an amazing job. As a psychologist, I had already heard of some of the theories. However, the way they were applying the theory to practical work experience and case studies offered me a whole new perspective. In addition, I really enjoyed their teaching style and felt honoured to be taught by professors with impressing expertise. It was very unique to watch a video of Dr Christine Porter in which she basically sums up the whole semester. It made me smile and the effort of producing it truly shows her passion for what she is doing.
Will you miss it?
I will definitely miss these pitches and the creativity that they included. It was fabulous to see the ideas other groups came up with. That was really inspiring. I guess you won’t really get the chance to exchange ideas on the same level when you are working. As I am 27 and as I have already been in the working life, I feel like it is time to finish my studies. I am really looking forward to start a career. However, I am sure that there will be times when I wish my university days to come back. On the other hand I love new experiences. Time changes and people change, we change. It is good to grow and develop. At the same time it is nice to keep a little child inside. My little child sometimes becomes very big what you can figure out by watching my appearances as the presenter of the campus tv show “Dreist.TV” (cheeky tv) of my home university last summer. I did that during (and maybe because of) my work as a counseling psychologist. Again, it was great to have a balance between very serious conversations and enjoying crazy adventures to giggle the stress away.
What have you enjoyed the most from your time here?
The diversity that London and also the University of Westminster offers is great. Whatever you are interested in, you will always find people and societies that have the same interest. I love my sports. I go running and to the gym about five times a week (less during exam periods though). Physical exercises are a great way to release stress. In addition, I have been doing martial arts for about two years. Back home I trained Kung Fu with a Shaolin Master from China and one of the doctors of my rehabilitation clinic introduced me to bagua martial arts, a traditional and very effective art. I’ve been practicing with the Westminster Bagua Martial Arts Society for about three month now and it has been absolutely amazing. Most people don’t even know what bagua is, the University of Westminster even offers courses that will give you a greater insight into martial arts than most clubs that are doing popular disciplines like boxing or body combat fitness.
For me martial arts is not about fighting, it is about life and about balancing an active lifestyle and grounding yourself.
Besides sport, is there anything else you love about London?
I love London every day.
The sights are great and I had the opportunity to visit most of them when I was working for “Sprachcaffe” language schools (Easter/Summer seasons 2008-2011). Sometimes I revisit tourist places like Camden because every day life seems to be a little different – and always colourful – there. In addition, I create my own adventures: I love walking around the Docklands, exploring new parks, trying hidden restaurants (and new flavours) and visit temporary art exhibitions.
Then I share my experiences with new things, people and places one might not know about in my blog London Calling Undisguised. For example, it was an amazing experience to interview Johnny Earle (1 / 2 / 3 / 4), the founder of the popular t-shirt brand “Johnny Cupcakes“. The Accounting & Management Society arranged a fantastic lecture and gave me the opportunity to record the interview, which I posted in my blog and aired on my radio show “London Calling” which is broadcasted weekly by Radio Triquency, the campus radio of my home university.
Another exciting London experience that I blogged about is the “Rain Room”, an exhibition at the Barbican Centre. It is a room in which it is pouring down but no matter where you go, you won’t get wet as sensors detect your movements. I think it would be amazing if London could use it to stop the rain.
Talking about blogging, you also have this really unique and fun Blog? Can you tell us a little about it?
It is a blog dedicated to Marks and Spencer Food. As I love food, I am very curious about new flavours, innovative food technology, food quality and in particular, in the way the products are presented and advertised. On a previous visit to the UK, I was introduced the M&S food. Once, a host family served the “Hot Chocolate Fudge Pudding” and I was absolutely amazed how delicious it was. It is a bit like a cake but then it has a soft chocolatey core and once you have it with vanilla ice-cream, you’ll be in heaven. Up to that point, I only knew my Mum’s homemade cakes (they are the best – just to clarify!) and I did not expect that any semi-processed food product could taste that fantastic. I tried more Marks & Sparks food and loved it.
Last semester I had a creative coursework on supermarkets. I choose M&S Food Halls and created my own book about it. Therefore, I used the layout of Lonely Planet travel guides and instead of writing about a city/country/region, I wrote about M&S food.
Why did you choose M&S?
It feels like they are always adding something I call the “secret ingredient” to their products. This special ingredient can be something unusual like halloumi cheese, coriander to chicken stripes and white chocolate instead of vanilla syrup to their vanilla milk. In addition, I like their health advice and that all M&S products are made without the nasty Glutamate. Marks and Spencer was also the first major retailer in the UK that removed all artificial colours and flavourings (2008). This is something you can certainly taste – at least when you are into food. Still, I cannot believe how tasty and fresh their ready meals are and I usually really don’t like ready meals at all.
In my blog I review the M&S food that I eat as a follow-up of my book and most of it is really “yum”, so it doesn’t feel like work at all. However, I still enjoy other food and cooking.
Fancy a look at Diana’s work?
Diana’s vimeo channel including English episodes of her appearance in German campus TV and her fictional ad for her Advertising module at the University of Westminster.
Diana’s blogs
Twitter: @DianaHuth
Interviewed by: Na’Omi Canart T:@NaOmiCanart
