Hi, my name is Christina O’Brien and I am currently studying on the MLitt in Publishing Studies course at the University of Stirling. When I finished my undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, I wasn’t really sure what direction to take career-wise. I knew that I wanted to take a break from studying to travel, so I took myself off to Korea to teach English for a year… which soon became two. I had a fantastic time there, but I knew that it wasn’t really ‘real-life’, and that I really needed to make some decisions about what my ‘real-life’ was going to be.

I had always toyed with the idea of journalism and had written for the university paper in Glasgow, but I knew that my true love had always been books; why had I not thought of publishing as a career before? Before long I was spending all of my breaks – in between teaching Korean 5th graders the ‘In, on, under’ song – researching postgraduate courses in publishing. The Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication jumped out to me at once. The centre has an excellent reputation and I am so glad I made the decision to study here; I love the course so far. The modules are very interesting and have a great mix of theory and practical knowledge. The staff too are fantastic; they all have professional experience in the publishing world and this really translates into how the course is taught.

Christina O’Brien