how you should ideally do something is great. Proving you've done it and can do it again is much more relevant. When recruiting I certainly expect people to have a degree but I focus more on the experience. If we were recruiting and one candidate had a masters whilst the other did not, it would not influence my decision. It all comes down to experience for me. In the creative department, internships - or placements as they are more commonly referred to - are pretty much the rights of passage into the creative department of any agency. They can be tough and traditionally paid nothing, or at best living costs...but on the upside you get real access to real briefs and real advice and experience working at the coal face and personally I think, especially in the creative side, the only way to find out if advertising is for you...and if you are for advertising. Adding to the comments on internships, building up your CV in terms of work experience is really important. Unpaid internships are a good way to enter the industry and I find with our students that after unpaid or paid internships of just 3 months they really improve their chance of securing a more permanent role within the company or with a similar company in the sector. Some Masters courses in Marketing do require the completion of an internship as part of the course or allow you to do external consultancy projects to help build up