Funny Marketing-Related Video

This past summer I watched several Hubspot webinars for my internship to learn more about social media marketing. Along with webinars, the company also produces many internet videos and podcasts. I thought that this video that I am posting was the most creative one that I viewed...especially if you 1.) understand all of the marketing jargon and 2.) know the song Baby Got Back by Sir Mix A Lot. Enjoy!

My Face Is Still There!

I have been representing the Kelley School bloggers on the undergraduate homepage for nine months straight! I feel so honored. My PR department is also very pleased. Here's what the web pages look like:

This is the undergraduate homepage for the Kelley School of Business.

This is the list of Kelley Student Bloggers after you click on the link (my face) on the Kelley Undergraduate website.

Studying Abroad at the Kelley School

There are a ton of opportunities to study abroad while you are an undergraduate at Kelley. Since high school, I had always wanted to study in London because of my interest in the culture and my own ancestry from the UK. (My father's side is part Scottish, my mother's side is part Northern Irish, and both sides have a significant percentage of English ancestry.) If you are really drawn to a country, chances are IU already has a program that can take you there...and if not they will definitely help you find one.

When I was a freshman, I started doing research about what my options were to study in London. I found this list of programs on the Kelley website that can come in handy for any business student looking at different options: http://kelley.iu.edu/ugrad/academics/abroad/programs.cfm.

Also, there are more study abroad programs that are not listed on that site that I have learned about while at Kelley. IU overseas study office has even more opportunities to look at, but usually you cannot take business courses while studying outside of the listed classes on the Kelley link I posted. However, there are also certain classes that take students abroad. When I was a sophomore, the honors students in the Sophomore Block program travelled to India for two weeks in November. There are also classes that take students abroad for a few weeks, and luckily the professors blog about their program happenings via blogs listed at: http://kelley.iu.edu/ugrad/blogs/index.cfm.

Application Process

Many programs have informational meetings annually for students to learn about the application process. For the London program informational meeting, I watched a PowerPoint presentation and was able to ask questions to a representative from Arcadia University (who organizes my London program). Also, it is important to be in contact with the Kelley overseas office as well as the IU overseas office if you have questions about the application. Mine was due in early September 2008, and I had to write six essays, submit several passport-sized pictures of myself, and re-arrange my resume to fit British standards. It's a time-consuming process that requires a lot of organization, so working on the application far in advance is a must.

Orientation at IU

IU gives a mandatory pre-departure orientation for every student signed up to go abroad the following semester. There, I listened to a lot of information about health care and culture shock in a big lecture hall with students attending every program, and then we later split into groups of our individual programs. That was the first time I learned who would be going to London with me.

Receiving Grades Late

For many programs, you do not receive your final grades with the same speed as you would at IU. In fact, I finished my spring semester at the end of April, but I was told that I will not be receiving my final grades until September. I also know that many students who travelled to Spain did not receive their grades until well into the summer months. It is not uncommon to need to wait many months to see what grades you received while abroad. In England, not only do professors grade you final exams, but they also have another professor grade it to be fair. The process takes a lot longer than the speedy-return scantron exams that are commonplace for IU finals.

Link to My London Blog

I wrote a frequent blog while I was abroad talking all about my experience. It gives a perspective of what my life was like while participating in my overseas program. You can find it at: http://elizabethinlondon2009.blogspot.com/

Summer Internships - A Reflection

When you are a junior in the Kelley School, you are strongly encouraged to find a summer internship position between your junior and senior years. In fact, you may even feel pressured to do so. Not only does it look good on your resume to have work experience, but many of your peers (future job-market competitors) will have completed summer internships. During Honors I-Core, which I took fall semester 2008, a required class was Professional Development. That class geared every junior Kelley Business Honors student for internship interviews through resume prep, mock interviews, cover letter writing, and other career building exercises. It was also a scare-tactic to inform us how competitive the job market was last fall - even for paid and unpaid interns.

During the past two summers, I have been lucky to secure a marketing internship at the environmental consulting/web-services firm Earth Knowledge. This past summer I completed an eleven-week marketing experience. During this time, I devoted my efforts to researching and implementing a social media marketing campaign for the company. In order to produce a social media action plan for the company, I attended numerous webinars, read several books, researched social media news/trends, participated in media agency meetings, experimented with various platforms, and created informed recommendations. Out of seven social media recommendations for the firm, I was able to assist with the implementation of the first four - which was very exciting for me. Overall, I feel confident that the knowledge I gained this past summer will carry over to success within my marketing classes during my senior year as well as my future professional career.

Now that I feel I have learned a lot of up-to-date marketing knowledge, I cannot stress the importance of finding an internship that caters to the knowledge base you should create for your post-undergrad career. I know it was very difficult for many juniors this year to obtain an internship due to the struggling economy, but I hope my positive undertaking can help motivate interested students to actively search for any beneficial work experience they can find (regardless of whether it is for their dream employer or not). I have been in interviews with prominent companies where the interviewer has asked me all about what I learned through interning at Earth Knowledge, even though the interviewer had never heard of the company. I truly think that it pays to have experience to talk about...especially to use as examples for commonly asked interview questions.

A blog I enjoyed reading during my internship this summer was written by the faculty at the UCSO, which is the undergraduate career center at Kelley. It gives some great tips for how to be an outstanding intern: http://kelleyinterns.wordpress.com/