Lessons Learned in the MSBA

Wondering what the annual New York Trip was like through the eyes of a student? MSBA student Victoria Lee lets us in on her experience.

Market Your Strengths

Nov 13, 2015

The New York trip was one of the most rewarding, tiring, and fun-filled weeks I have ever experienced. Being able to bond with my classmates and leaders in the program, confirmed that I made the right decision in continuing my studies at Catholic. Every speech and every visit to the companies shared the same sentiment. While there were several terms and concepts from class, like the marketing mix, process, the importance of social media, the biggest theme I got from all the companies was marketing yourself. Building your own brand and being marketable to different fields, was the largest marketing aspect of the trip. Every company mentioned the importance of being genuine, being inquisitive, and being a team player, are all elements vital to the different marketing industries and marketing yourself. Building on your strengths and marketing these strengths are extremely important. For example, I learned that companies like DDB and Interbrand are keen on teamwork and collaboration. Throughout my undergraduate career, Sociology was crucial on seminar type classes, as well as in the MSBA courses, teamwork is everything. These elements are crucial to working at companies like this and I definitely want to be able to advertise these strengths when I apply to jobs in the very near future.
To further the point of marketing on your strengths, it made me reflect a lot on the skills I learned from my undergraduate career, and the abundant skills we are learning from the MSBA program. The core of sociology is understanding human interaction, being able to adapt to different cultural differences, understanding people’s thought process. These skills would help me in being able to work in a team as well as if I want to have a career in marketing, I can build on these skills. The skills I learned from my undergraduate career are being amplified and magnetized in the MSBA program. In our marketing and management courses, we learn in a seminar style and have discussions that allow us to voice our opinion, while being open to other people’s opinion. We are also able to collaborate on different case studies and class project, which I learned on the trip, is vital to marketing. Teamwork is also extremely prevalent in our accounting and quantitative courses, these courses are not my strongest courses, but getting help from my classmates has been great. I learned at the different advertising companies, that even if you have an area that is not your strong suit, you can get input from your co-workers and teammates. The skills I learned from my undergraduate and graduate career, are skills I want to market when I start applying to jobs.
Marketing yourself and marketing your skills, are all lessons I learned from the New York trip and in class. The importance of being genuine and inquisitive are both prevalent in class and when we were listening to the different speaker’s speeches. Marketing was present during the entire trip.