"Is fashion a real degree?" YES IT IS

I study Fashion Business and Management at Manchester Metropolitan University and when I tell people that, I always get remarks about it not being a real degree. I've had things such as "How did you find the latest assignment? Did you struggle colouring in the lines?", "So, you're getting a degree for sewing?" and my most hated, yet the most common question, "Is fashion a real degree?"

How wrong these people are.

The fashion industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, and there's never not going to be a fashion industry. Think about it, as long as people live, they will wear clothes. Simple. My course is essentially business management, but for fashion, so instead of having a business management degree like over 700 people at my university alone, I chose to pursue my love for business and my love for fashion at the same time, like the other 40 students on my course.

People cannot question my course and what job I'll get from it, and then tell me that they study poetry, I mean, seriously?

I have already handed in two assignments since starting university just under two months ago, and I'm working on my next one already, nobody else seems to have handed in formally assessed work yet? Not even one piece! PLUS I have a maths exam in summer, easy peasy, right?

It's not even just the work that we get set at uni either, we have to do further reading, like most students, except we have to read textbooks for theory, magazines and newspapers for information and blogs, websites and online journals on a daily basis to keep up with the latest fashion news because fashion changes constantly, unlike science and maths where the rules are written in stone.

After completing research, we then have to write our essays, but in a creative format. So you can spend hours and hours trying to present your work, rather than just typing it up on a word document and submitting, and then we have to create a visual representation to sum up our reports, which again, takes bloody hours! We have business reports, moodboards, timelines, infographics, charts and much much more that needs to go into our essays.

And then if that's not time consuming enough, we have to actually work in fashion too! I'm lucky enough to have a job in a fashion store that pays me, but I also try do work experience in as many different places as possible, and you don't get paid for that!

So, after working 20 hours at work, a few hours experience, 13 hours at uni, 10 hours on assignments and reading, a few hours blogging and networking, I finally allow some time for myself to go out, to then be asked "Is fashion even a real degree?'"

YES IT IS, and it's bloody hard work!