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Management Practicum (2012)
School of Communication, Media & Theatre
The University of Tampere
Course code: MEJOS9
Course credits: 5 ECTS
Supervisor:
Gregory Ferrell Lowe, Ph.D.
Professor of Media Management
Greg.Lowe@uta.fi
Sessions:
Tue. 10.1 from 13.30 – 15.30
Tue. 31.1 from 10.00 – 13.00
Tue. 17.4 from 09.00 – 11.00
Tue. 8.5 from 10.00 – 12.00
Tue. 29.11 from 13.30 – 15.30
There will an additional session scheduled for the Autumn 2012 semester. This
session will be a series of individual presentations about the practicum experience,
culminating in a roundtable discussion about lessons learned to capture results of
general applied value. The grade for this course will therefore be recorded in Autumn
2012.
Students can schedule the Practicum to begin anytime after February 1, 2012. It must
be completed no later than September 14, 2012.
Location: The first session on 10.1 meets in A5 of the Main Building. All other
sessions meet in A331g in the Main Building.
Useful materials will be posted at the following URL web address:
www.uta.fi/cmt/en/studies/masters_programmes/media_management/index.html.
Pre-Requisites
This course is required for all M.A. students enrolled in the Media Management
graduate studies programme, and is recommended for Ph.D. student in the
programme.
Course Summary
The coursework comprising the graduate studies programme in media management
has three interdependent dimensions: 1) studies about theory in management and
media that are important for scholarly development, 2) assignments requiring
teamwork to encourage the development of essential management skills (e.g. time
management, leadership, division and delegation of labour, peer review, project
management, etc.), and 3) visitations and interactions with practitioners to gain a real
world grounding. This third aspect is handled in two courses, the Company Visitation
Programme (MEJOS16) and this course, Management Practicum (MEJOS9).
Management Practicum is unique for two reasons. First, this is the only course that
each individual student (hereafter Apprentice) will arrange and conduct on his or her
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own initiative. Typically an instructor is responsible for organising everything students
do for a course. In this case, each Apprentice is responsible for his or her experience
in the Practicum. Of course your Prof. Lowe will assist and direct as your Supervisor
for the course, and he is responsible for the assessment of assignments that
determine students’ grades. But the focus, contents and logistics of this course are
determined by each Apprentice in consultation with his or her Mentor, and is based
on an Learning Agreement signed by both the Apprentice and the Mentor.
The second essential difference is the lack of a predetermined timetable for the
completion of this course. Although there are scheduled class sessions when
students meet with the Supervisor for presentations and discussions that are relevant
to the course, the Apprentice agrees with the Mentor when the Practicum begins and
ends, what kinds of work are required, how assignments and deliverables are to be
handled, what outcomes are expected, and any stipulations for making this work. For
example, Mentors often require confidentiality of information that is the proprietary
property of the firm, or which may be sensitive in nature. An Apprentice may need the
Mentor to make introductions or organise opportunities to engage in various activities
that would otherwise be impossible to access, e.g. closed session meetings or
internal access to password protected data.
The unique attributes of this course have significant implications:

Fulfilling this course requires the highest degree of personal responsibility.
Each student is responsible for planning, organising and managing a
relationship with a professional manager in the field. The Mentor must be able
to trust the Apprentice to do the right thing in every case, to be honest,
honourable and dependable. You must fulfil the expectations that are
entrusted to you by your Mentor, the company, and your Supervisor.

As a student from UTA, the Apprentice will inherently represent the University
of Tampere and this graduate studies programme in a real world setting. That
has consequences. The future of this programme depends on the reputation
we build and maintain for achieving excellence – not only in grades and
papers, but in behaviours, attitudes, eagerness to learn, effort to develop
skills, and commitment to mastering competencies. Acting inappropriately or
unethically is not only damaging to the Apprentice, but ultimately for the entire
programme and community – faculty, peers and funders.

The Apprentice will be accepted into a working organisation where a lot is
happening and with real stakes that are often significant. You will be there as
a guest, sponsored by a Mentor with a reputation to maintain and who is busy
with the daily work of mandated responsibilities. The Mentor’s time is
precious, the responsibilities are many and often weighty, and the company is
has a culture that is not subject to the Apprentice’s preferences. You will learn
in someone else’s world and must be respectful and walk humbly. You don’t
know it all, you aren’t always right, and things that you don’t like aren’t
necessarily wrong.

There are likely to be some expenses involved. This has a bearing on
deciding who would be a best choice. If you choose a Mentor who lives in a
different city and must commute there will be transportation costs. Even with a
Mentor in the same city, you will almost certainly be expected to pay for your
meals (if you don’t brownbag) and may need to purchase some books or
supplies to fulfil requirements agreed upon with your Mentor. The University
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doesn’t provide funding for this, so keep the costs in mind when planning not
only whom you will learn with but also how the structure of meetings and
onsite visits will be handled.

Keep in mind the crucial point of this course – you are there to learn what it
means to be a manager in a media company, how things work in real life, the
good, the bad and the ugly realities of management in practice. You are not
there to learn about newspaper design or how to operate a TV camera or how
to code a website. You are there to learn all you can about the challenges and
experience of managing employees and working as a manager in an
organisation. The plan for your Practicum should be oriented to achieve as
rich an experience in this as is possible given the resources you have to work
with.

It’s possible to do your Practicum either in Finland or in your home country (if
elsewhere). If you are not Finnish, it might be difficult to find a suitable Mentor
who is comfortable working in English or your native language. And of course
the company will anyway be in Finland and much of what happens and
matters will be conducted in Finnish or Swedish, not English. There are some
possibilities, of course, and we will discuss those in class as things are getting
started. But it’s useful to know that you don’t have to do the Practicum in
Finland, and there may be long-term advantages to doing it at home (e.g.
opening doors for future employment).

Your grade for the course is partly decided by feedback that will be solicited
from the Mentor for your Supervisor upon completion of the Practicum. Of
course you will have a say because the Supervisor will require an evaluation
of the experience from each Apprentice about the Mentor relationship, and in
self-evaluation. Moreover, there requirements that will be graded by your
Supervisor only, which might or might not be shared with the Mentor (that is
agreed in practice). But it’s important to understand that your Mentor will have
a significant impact in determining your grade for this course.
This is an international graduate studies programme. All lectures, papers,
presentations, and discussions related to Management Practicum at university are
conducted in English. Of course it is not a problem for the onsite experience to be
handled in whichever language, or combination of languages, the Apprentice and his
or her Mentor find most comfortable.
Hints and Tips
The best choice for a Mentor is not always easy to decide. There are many factors
that can have a bearing on who is ‘best’. As mentioned above, there are usually
financial considerations to be kept in mind, as well as issues related to language
facility. Some companies may be quite eager to have an Apprentice and will provide
some funding or other resources to support the Mentorship, such as a temporary
office. But this is rare, especially today when the economic situation for many
companies is complicated.
Moreover, an Apprentice may find it especially useful to be mentored by more than
one manager in the overall process. This is possible, but does create unique
challenges. The Apprentice must one Mentor who is responsible for the Practicum as
a whole because otherwise it is confusing later as to who decides what and on which
basis. Moreover, multiple mentors may work at cross-purposes. That is another
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reason it is important to have Mentor who is responsible. As a rule, it is best to do the
Practicum in only one company and to have only one Mentor, but to arrange for
projects in the total Practicum experience that provide the enrichment you are
wanting.
There are as many unscrupulous people and unsavoury types in the corporate world
as any other area of life. They aren’t always easy to identify at first because a lot of
the time such people appear to be all sweetness and light. If you find that you are
being used instead of schooled, if there is bullying or sexual harassment or treatment
that is either threatening or hurtful in any sense, you must contact your Supervisor
immediately about this. You need to record the incident, writing it down as soon as
possible after an incident to capture all the details you can, and if there were
witnesses you should ask them to do the same. They might not be willing for personal
reasons related to internal politics, but it’s important to ask – and to document that
you did ask. It’s rare that anything truly serious will happen, or that a lawsuit would
result for anything short of an actual crime, but you are not required to be anybody’s
victim or punching bag.
Often a Mentor will require certain kinds and amounts of work for the firm. There is
nothing inherently wrong with that. On the contrary, it is usually among the most
enjoyed and enriching of learning tasks during the Practicum. But you should
remember that the Apprentice is not being contracted out as ‘free labour’ for any
company or manager. You are a graduate student first and foremost. You are at the
company to learn how things work in the real world. Everything you agree to do
should be decided on the basis of whether or not the experience of doing it will benefit
your learning. You are not an employee in any sense. What you will do should be
agreed in the negotiations that establish the Mentorship, and how you do it should be
agreed in the period before you begin.
At the same time, it is important to be flexible. Opportunities may pop up that were not
expected by the Apprentice or the Mentor. Lightning sometimes strikes out of a clear
blue sky! There may be rare and valuable possibilities that unexpectedly arise to learn
something that would otherwise be impossible. Also things can develop as a
consequence of ongoing practice; you meet someone who really clicks with your
interests and offers to involve you in a great opportunity, or you do an assignment
that turns out especially well and the Mentor invites you to do something more with it
or in addition to it, etc. It’s important not to get locked into a rigid set of expectations
or to treat the plan as if everything is set in concrete.
Although it is tempting to choose a Mentor who is high up in the management
hierarchy of a company, this is often not a wise choice. The higher the boss in the
management structure, the less time he or she is likely to have for you and the more
likely it is that he or she will be suddenly required to travel or handle a corporate
emergency. The best plan can unravel quickly, and you may not have opportunity to
make up whatever has been lost because the timeframe for the Practicum is
comparatively short, after all. This is not to say you would be wise to chose a Mentor
at the bottom of the ladder, either. Managers just getting started in their careers lack
the experience and networks to do you much good, and there may be other
complications (e.g. young managers are often single and may have agreed to Mentor
a student for personal ulterior motives). You should be looking for someone with at
least ten years of management experience who is currently working in the middle or
lower upper levels in the hierarchy.
Finally, it’s vitally important to understand that you have an invaluable opportunity to
open doors and establish some presence that can have implications for your future
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career. Although it is quite all right to dress casually for most days in university
classes and among friends and family, it is a different matter when you are entering a
professional work culture. Pay attention to the corporate culture and dress
accordingly. This is a factor not only for the dress code dress, but also in how you
speak (e.g. avoid profane language, address people as they give you permission –
not by the first name or a nickname unless they invite you to do that) and how you act
(not flirtatious or childish, for example, but thoughtful, cheerful and polite). The first
impression often does last a lifetime. Remember that a lot of one essential skill for
management success is managing the impression you make on others. That can be
especially challenging when you are having a ‘bad day’. If your day isn’t the greatest,
that shouldn’t be everyone else’s problem.
Inputs Determining the Personal Grade
20% Time Management: Class attendance is mandatory. One absence due to
illness or serious incident incurs no penalty, provided the student has validation.
Additional absences, or non-validated absences, will result in grade penalties. Please
understand that attendance is also expected in agreed meetings and deadlines with
the Mentor.
25% Performance Assessment: At the conclusion of the Practicum the Mentor will
receive a form from the Supervisor, consisting of a series of statements the Mentor
will agree or disagree with, more or less strongly, evaluating your performance.
There will be open-ended items, as well, for remarks and discussion. The Mentor will
be asked to summarize with a recommended score between 0 and 100.
30% Learning Diary: You are required to keep a diary of the Practicum experience.
This document will contain entries made during and after each task, visit, meeting,
day onsite, etc. Ideas that come to mind in periods of reflection should also be
captured. Cite documents or other materials that have been reviewed during the
Practicum. Please understand that you are not writing a book! The Supervisor will
read the diary and provide a grade based on the quality of the contents. It is not
necessary or possible to write about everything in detail. Of course you can write as
much as you want to, and whatever you find useful to include, but what you will
submit to the Supervisor should be a chronological representation of the best and
most important contents. There is no set number of pages or words, but for the
Supervisor the digest of your Learning Diary should not exceed 20 pages in 1.5
spacing and using 12-point font (yes, it must be typewritten).
25% Lessons Learned Roundtable: At the conclusion of the course on a date to be
determined for the Autumn 2012 semester, each Apprentice will make a personal
presentation focused on what he or she has learned about being a media manager.
There will be group-related assignments for this Roundtable, i.e. expectations for
contributing to the collective value of the results. All of this will be clarified in a
briefing you will receive about one month in advance. Your presentation will be
derived mainly from the Learning Diary, so a lousy job with that will knock-on in a
lousy result for this.
Course Structure
Jan 1 Introduction to Management Practicum
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
Review the syllabus
Discussion
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Assignment for session on 31.1
Jan 31 Roundtable on Options & Timetables


Discussion on potential Mentors, rationale, intentions, and timetables
Review of preparatory planning requirements and the Contract
Apr 4 Update on Mentorship Plans and Experience to Date
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Individual updates
May 8 Update on Mentorship Plans and Experience to Date
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Individual updates
Autumn 2012 Lessons Learned Roundtable
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(Date to be decided)