Timing was everything when Dean returned to study marketing

The ‘mature-age student’ tag never sat well with Dean Worthington, but he admits his life experience helped him choose his next career steps and complete a Masters with distinctions.

By the time Dean enrolled in the Master of Marketing at RMIT, he had qualifications in public relations and education. He had spent seven years teaching at high schools in Australia and the UK, and had extensive experience in the events industry, including at the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

While working for the fashion festival, Dean got a glimpse of how he could advance his career by enhancing and expanding his skills.

“I was also working in partnerships and sponsorship so I could see that combination of skills, and the people that we were working with, most of them were marketing managers,” he said.

“I could see that the skills within marketing would be beneficial to work in both sponsorship and also in a marketing role as well. So I knew that moving back into that industry, I needed to create a point of specialisation and I thought marketing was the best fit for me because it would cover multiple angles, but also business elements too.”

RMIT alumni Dean Worthington sitting on a park bench

Experiencing the difference made by maturity

Tackling university with a wealth of life and work experience empowered Dean to take on the Masters.

“This awful term of ‘mature age student’, I mean, I was in my mid-thirties and I was hardly that mature,” he said.

“But having some time away from education, so doing my undergrad and working in industry, and then coming back to a Masters, I found it so much more beneficial than if I had gone straight from an undergrad straight into a masters.”

With years of work behind him, Dean found his coursework more relatable and applicable to business scenarios.

Having that real world experience, or having an experience outside of a university setting, and then coming back to it was really beneficial for me.

“I could bring real-world experience or real-world examples to actually contextualise the learning and for me, it made it all sort of stick in my brain.”

A deeper engagement in his studies also produced better academic results than Dean had ever achieved before.

"When I went back and did my Masters I was achieving high distinctions and was always working at that 75 and above percentage of coursework, and that was something that I was really, really proud of because that certainly wasn't the norm in my previous studies,” he said.

“I think a lot of that had to do with, first of all, being committed to the studying - I really wanted to achieve the Masters because I could see the bigger picture - but also having that real world experience outside of a classroom.”

RMIT alumni Dean Worthington standing in a park, looking at the camera

Juggling work, study and life

The Master of Marketing took Dean 18 months to complete and during that time he was working full-time in business development partnerships role at the Melbourne Fashion Festival. He remembers it being an intense period, but one that was manageable thanks to the evening classes at RMIT.

“So I would start work at 8am, 8:30am and then finish around 5-ish so I would basically run down Swanston Street, grab a sushi roll on the way and then end up at uni, and going there for the three hour lectures,” he said.

“It was pretty full-on, but I was pretty committed. So the long days didn't really bother me - it just meant I had to be super organised with life.”

Throughout his studies and in his career today, Dean has prioritised his wellbeing to stay on top of a hectic schedule. Being disciplined about physical and mental health has helped him manage stress and stay focused.

“I’ve learned that sacrificing myself in terms of working long hours and burning myself out doesn't make getting the job done any better,” he said.

“You can never be performing at your best if you're constantly stressed or you're constantly tired. I think everyone's self-care is different, but I think whatever you do, centralising it is important.”

Reaching high level roles

After graduating in 2016, Dean moved into marketing and development roles at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Adelaide Fringe, and became the Chief Executive Officer at Arts Mildura. Then in 2023 he was hired as Assistant Director, Ceremonies, Entertainment and Leader Operations, in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Dean was instrumental in leading all ceremonial and entertainment elements of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2024.

RMIT alumni Dean Worthington walking along a grassy path

Today he works for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, managing events such as international conferences hosted in Australia.

Bidding for such high-level political events can be a slow, bureaucratic process, but if successful, Dean and his team need to spring into action and this applies the same focused technique he used during his studies.

“The machinations of government may not always be super quick, but there are times on the event delivery side when things do happen quickly,” he said.

“Working in that fast-paced environment has always been something that I have really thrived under and that probably even goes back to how I studied the Master of Marketing. “My approach was to lock in and get it done as quickly as possible.”

Story: Kate Jones

RMIT Business students stand about a computer discussing report results

What's the next step?

If you're feeling inspired by this alumni's story, why not explore RMIT's postgraduate business options and see if there's one that fits you and your career goals.

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