Any Marketing Majors?

This is a good thread to start. I mentioned something like this a year ago and got a lot of good feeback.

Currently I'm a 33 year old sophomore in college. My major...marketing.

From what I've seen in the classes I've taken and the classes I need to take yet, college does not teach you how to do effective marketing. They'll teach you how to network, do research, management skills and heavy analytical info for buying and selling goods. But marketing? Nope.

There's only 2 classes I have that are even remotely relevant to my degree...Sociology and Anthropology. The rest pretty much blow.

The marketing degree comes in handy for tedious things like keyword research and buying cycles. Analytical stuff. However, if you want to learn some basic marketing 101 then read some of the classics from authors like Dan Kennedy, Claude Hobkins, Jay Abraham, Schwartz, Ogilvy, Halbert and so on.

So one may ask..."Shane, if you don't really have anything good to say about the major, then why major in it?"

Funny you should ask.

My goal...I will be a marketing director for Walt Disney Corporation by the end of 2015. And to have said career, I'll need a Masters in marketing. Notice I said marketing DIRECTOR and NOT MANAGER. Here's a good description of a marketing director...

Marketing director’s job entails managing the marketing strategy of a company. Most marketing directors relate themselves with market segments, large groups of consumers, defined by age ethnicity, income, are any other factors. Marketing directors need to find which market segments can buy the products of a company and how best they can sell the company products to the targeted market. Marketing directors work closely with other departments to drive the programs, displays, shows that excite the partners and customers of the company to meet their business goals.

It may sound funny, but read that above paragraph again and see how similar it is to affiliate marketing, online marketing, direct marketing, lead generation marketing and product creation.

Pretty darn similar yes?

I enjoy those things. And the salary starts at $90,000 a year with benefits.

However, in the mean time, I go to school, run my inspection company and make some coin online on the side.

Peace,

Shane

I agree with you on all counts!

Both economics and statistics get an underserved bad rep because most professors are fighting that rep instead of demonstrating how it actually works.

So much of the business curriculum is obviously geared for middle management, and surprisingly light on small business and entrepreneurship. Too much of is the perfect education for a transition to the 20th century, not the 21st.

Thanks for all the useful posts everyone. I'm probably going to make the switch because I feel that if nothing else I will at least enjoy it. I chose Kinesiology because I'm a pretty active guy, but I've discovered that there are really no careers in the field that are for me. Most Kines majors end up as physical therapists and most of them end up working with workmens comp cases.. which is highly unrewarding because most of those people (statistically) have no desire to get better because it means they have to go back to work. I just don't want to come home everyday and dread going to work the next.

Thanks again.