Alumni - Giulia Carla Rossi, MA Publishing and Language

In 2013 I decided to move from Italy to the UK to take a postgraduate degree at Oxford Brookes University. I had no previous knowledge of publishing, but I knew I wanted a practical, hands-on course, that would give me a solid grounding in various areas as well as the technical skills necessary to work in a competitive environment. After researching and comparing different publishing programmes across Europe, it was clear that Brookes was the perfect fit for me.

I started my MA with the vague idea of wanting to work in Editorial, to then discover the variety and diversity of roles that publishing has to offer. I was especially interested in the Digital Media module, which helped me develop my IT skills, giving me a good working knowledge of XML, HTML and CSS. I was so fascinated by innovations in digital publishing that I decided to explore this concept further in my Major Project, by adapting a bilingual (Mandarin/English) children’s title into eBook format.

Alongside the MA, I also completed two work placements, which I managed to secure through the university. My experience as part of the Primary team at Pearson gave me the opportunity to explore eBooks and digital products in greater detail through content testing. I also spent two months within the Author Marketing division of Wiley, working together with the Journal Open Access team. While dealing with authors, I also had the chance to carry out different tasks, including editorial and administrative duties.  

After leaving the MA I worked in a variety of roles, from Assistant Digital Production Controller and Editorial Assistant for Digital Projects at Cambridge University Press, to eBook Quality and Production Controller at both Penguin Random House and Bloomsbury. I am now Curator of Digital Publications at the British Library, working on collection and preservation strategies for complex digital publications. Digital has been my constant interest throughout my publishing career, and I’m very grateful to Brookes for first introducing me to this area of publishing. I would recommend the MA programme to anyone interested in working in publishing and getting a head start in their career.

Posted on 05 Apr 2019 around 3pm