Business School Majors

Marketing

Marketing is a term that encompasses quite a bit. It endures a lot of unfair criticism because it is so much fun. On the surface, marketing appears to be all about ideas, feelings, emotions and messages. These are intangibles that are very hard to measure and almost impossible to track. Despite this knock, most love marketing as it explains why we act the way we do as consumers. It also explains why many companies fail despite great products and priceless services.

Beneath the surface though, marketing is a very tough discipline with methodical statistical research behind every move. It is always more interesting when you blend in financial analysis to show exactly how every dollar spent on marketing impacts a company’s bottom line. This is when some students develop an aversion to marketing.

Advertising, Public Relations and Sales all fall under the marketing umbrella. Advertising is the glamorous field in marketing to many. It is a very creative, tough and competitive field with a great upside. Advertisers can control the message they are trying to convey because they pay for it. Public relationists are not so lucky. They tend to spin the facts and figures in the hope that the message gets relayed and interpreted in the best light possible. Public relations and advertising are business terms that make up what the military calls propaganda. Sales are almost treated as an orphan by some in business but it is what makes a company viable. The sooner you realize that selling is the gateway to success and longevity, the more fruitful your career. Salesmen are never in short supply. Business and life are all about selling. Keep reading to learn how to succeed at selling without selling out.

Perhaps no one better captured the notion of selling a feeling more than the late Alfred "Freddy" Heineken. Indeed Heineken is a fine beer, but Grolsch and Amstel are equally good beers from the Netherlands. What made Heineken so successful as a marketer was that instead of selling beer; he was "selling warmth, gaiety." The fact that good ol' Freddy was lacing his warmth and gaiety with 5% alcohol sure did help, but the fact of the matter is that it was the image and aura of Heineken that flowed from those bottles – not beer per se.

Other Majors include:

Accounting

Decision Sciences

Entrepreneurship

Finance

Human Resources, Management & Organizational Behavior

Management of Information Systems

Marketing

International Business

And of course, don't forget your electives.