For the most part, people work hard and want to have free time to enjoy their hobbies. Many enjoy a good Sunday of snacks and drinks while watching sports on television. This is a hobby that, throughout the world, seems to happen on an almost daily basis. But sports teams don’t just come together. They are managed. Without a solid front office, we wouldn’t be able to watch and enjoy the games like we do today. If you want to be part of this front office team, earning an MBA sports management degree is your first step.

“There is no world without theatre”—Edward Bond.

Ever since a child, have you been told that you will only be successful if you go to college and get an education? Well that might have been true for the longest time, but with how society is changing, you can be successful without putting yourself through hell of student loans.

Education is an important internal resource that some see as not for them without realizing its great potential for opening many doors of opportunities. The term "Education" is described through a variety of different definitions. One specific definition, the act or process of general knowledge and developing the powers of reasoning and judgement, closely identifies with my idea of education and how I perceive it. Still, it’s so much more to defining the term education, besides the books. I see it as expanding one’s knowledge through perception and understanding of the things around you. I believe education begins the moment our parents begin teaching us how to talk and walk and everything else that is taught to us before we reached school age.

I like going to school. However, the conflict between me and school, specifically college education, is the expense of attendance. I mean there is nothing quite like gaining knowledge that no one can ever take from you, right? In a class of 200 plus students with one instructor, quite classic huh? A good number of us graduated high school and got accepted into a university or college, wonderful right? For what feels like a minute of dreams coming true turns into nightmare with all the money your swimming in owing the sharks, owned by the sharks. So is it worth it after the four years? With your degree in hand, resume, and decent credentials you get a job and a set pay for your knowledge only to pay for your gained knowledge simultaneously for the next thirty years, living the American Dream, correct?

I am writing this with the perspective that hindsight is 20/20 after three years researching and writing my thesis, all the while wondering whether I had made the right decision. Three years feels like a very long time in your early twenties and I can't deny that I have struggled with a sense of 'missing out' on the relative normalcy of working and socialising in a non-academic environment. I have watched my friends move on from university, get jobs, and progress personally whilst I sit in archives or at my desk writing a seemingly endless piece of work. Don't get me wrong, I was proud of myself for winning the Studentship to do my PhD and for completing my education up until that point. Plus, I have had an extreme amount of passion for my subject and my thesis topics, but, I also have passion and pride for other things in life which I have pushed to the side in recent years.

I started working on a college diploma in woodworking when I failed out of university. I spent a lot of effort to be able to get into a university program. I took extra summer school courses to upgrade some of my grades. I was ready to get my university life on the road.

I am sure we have all been at a stage in life where we feel we want to start studying again—and I'm one of them! The reason behind writing this is to try and encourage other people who also feel they want to go back into education, but either feel too anxious to do so, whether they feel that it would be impossible for them, or due to their lifestyle. I understand having priorities and commitments get in the way, leaving people with little time for anything else. However, I hope reading my story might persuade others that everyone is capable of learning as an adult.

Do you like working with children and youth? Do you want to make a difference and shape the future? If so, a diploma of school age education and care might be the right kind of degree for you to get. However, there are some problems that many people face when studying in a classroom environment. If you want this kind of diploma, but don’t want to be in a classroom for several years, you might want to consider studying online.

That is it. It is done. Over. Caput. You have graduated. After five years of sorrow, deadlines, super hectic timetables, loveless love life, meaningless jobs, sleepless nights, tasteless meals, moneyless wallets, and sugarless coffee, you finally made it. Now it is the time of your life, the time for you to shine, earn money, and go to an expensive holiday somewhere with an exotic two-word name.

On the 11th of July, I was due to be graduating with an MSc in Business Management. I am Moroccan and I have had a Moroccan public education for most of my life up until high school, where I graduated with a somewhat embarrassing score. A lot of public Moroccan universities would not accept me. Thus, I looked outside the box and found an affiliate university that provided a British education with a Cardiff Metropolitan degree from the comfort of your own country.