Postgraduate News & Views

How might Chinese visual culture impact on an advertising campaign? What does the one-child policy in China mean for people's aims and ideals? These are just some of the issues tackled in the University of Newcastle's new MA in Chinese Language and Culture for Business, says Alison Hardie, the director of the Chinese studies project.

"The aim is to provide a course that will enhance the ability of British people and companies to do more business in China through a better understanding of the culture there. But as well as an understanding of the historical, cultural and economic background of the way business works in China, we also provide a level of language teaching so that students can communicate adequately and socialise."

Students take three taught modules – Chinese language for business; Chinese society today; and doing business in today's China – and spend several weeks on a study visit, working in a company or in an academic environment.

"I spent 10 months in China after graduating, and basically fell in love with it," says Ottolie Evers, 24, who hopes the course will lead to a China-related job in the UK. "I realised when I first came back that I had become a bit of a China fanatic, and my friends and family hope that the course will get it all out of me, but I'm off back to China over the summer, so I think it's going to go on for life."

The Open University's recently launched 12-16 week programme, Leading for Results, is designed to develop skills and understanding in team leadership and performance management and to a state-of-the-art understanding of comparative leadership styles. But it can benefit even those not working in conventional management roles, says David Hicks, the head of education and training at the 3Ns Mental Health Trust in Newcastle. The trust encouraged 60 staff to take the course, including administrators, nurses, consultant psychiatrists and union officials. "Relationship and communication skills go well beyond management level and many people who are not working in management can benefit from developing leadership skills," he says, "It can lead to a more positive culture in any organisation."

The part-time, distance-learning course involved a huge learning curve, "but whatever position people were in, they adopted new styles of working," Hicks says. "They now feel more comfortable at work and are sharing their knowledge."

Piloted in the call-centre sector and the NHS, the course combines tutor-supported workshops, computer-based learning and marked work with an emphasis on getting participants to look at aspects of their own jobs and organisations and relating them to the taught theory and concepts.

A mock crime-scene set in a Dorset farm gives students on Bournemouth's world-leading MSc in Forensic Archaeology a chance to put into practice the skills they have learnt in recovering human remains.

"They have a week to assess the site, search it, find the graves and recover the evidence, all under extreme pressure," says the deputy course leader, Paul Cheetham, "They have to think on their feet. You can't just plonk someone in a forensic investigation, you have to know things about rules of disclosure and so on."

Running since 1995, the course adapts archaeological principles and methods to the medical and legal framework of crime investigation. It attracts students from all over the world. "We get lots of people from North America and Australia in particular who want to develop these unique skills in recovering human remains," says Cheetham, whose students go on to work in trouble spots in Eastern Europe, South America and Africa. "They now make up around 75 per cent of the teams working there."