To prepare students for success in a rapidly changing landscape, the Penn State Smeal College of Business is making several enhancements to its Marketing curriculum.
These changes follow a trend of introducing more hands-on opportunities for students, many times interacting with and being mentored by industry professionals.
Two new courses — Marketing 397: Marketing Skills and Marketing 497: Digital Marketing Practicum — allow students to diversify their skill sets and tailor them to specific career goals.
Marketing 397 gives students two options, communication skills and social media/data analytics skills. Students can choose from among the following options: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Writing for Marketing, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Hootsuite.
Marketing 497 provides students with an opportunity for advanced study and coursework in digital marketing within a small-group, practicum class structure. Students work on a real scenario using current business objectives and overcome challenges provided by the course partners, Amazon Advertising and Global Overview, with a course mentor from each company.
“Our curriculum changes are designed to give students very practical experience thinking about campaigns that happen in the real world,” says Jennifer Chang Coupland, a clinical professor of marketing who chairs the undergraduate marketing curriculum.
