In the first part of this series, Nathália told us about what to expect from her experience as a student at Ohio University, in Athens. In this article, get to know more details about the study program in Marketing.
Part 2 – Ohio University: program details of the Executive Marketing Seminar
Every time I plan a new trip I tend to create very high expectations about it, even if I don’t want to leave the surprise element out of the equation, and this last time it wasn’t very different. I planned to spend 30 days in the United States, 18 travelling and 12 studying, with the cherry on top of turning 30 years old in New York City. I booked my stays, attractions, bus tickets and prepared the trip’s budget and my state of mind for an intensive summer program at Ohio University, but truth be told I arrived at the Columbus airport without knowing exactly what we were going to study. The Executive Marketing Seminar is structured in the following way:
- Professors from the College of Business lead the classes in a variety of different rooms across the campus in Athens. We had classes in Walter Hall, Copeland Hall and in Nelson Commons;
- The Business English and Marketing courses lasted 32h each;
- Studies take full-time dedication, from 9am to 12pm and from 1:30pm to 5:30pm;
- We visited companies in the first Friday of the course – in this summer edition we went to Fahlgren Mortine, advertising agency, and to the newspaper The Columbus Dispatch;
- We graduated and received official OU certificates during a special ceremony.
On the first day we arrived, LAIOB organized a shuttle bus from the airport to the university, and then we went to the dorms and prepared to have a welcome dinner led by Scott Wright, director of the Latin America executive education programs. The next day, classes started at 9am with Business English lessons – we learned about personal communication style, presentation skills, and English language in the workplace, besides a series of tricks to improve one’s mastery of the subject. Since the course had a class of about 80 Brazilians, outside of the classroom we practiced very little English. The hint here is to make friends with other students in the campus or with townies whenever you go out to Court Street, even if it’s just to mention the weather, the important thing is to speak and practice.
Academic professors and market-oriented instructors delivered the marketing seminar, and we spoke about: market research, sales and services, branding, segmentation and positioning. The best of them was Tom Marchese, former VP of several American companies – Elmer’s, Papa Murphy’s, Bob Evans, Wendy’s, Hershey Chocolate, KFC and Nestle. Tom is very energetic and he shares many stories about his time in those companies, what helps us anchor all the concepts he discusses during case studies.
Besides gaining new knowledge, what I take the most out of this trip are the people: new friends I made, the professors, the moments when we worked in a team and cracked up or were as nervous as hell, the rehearsal for public presentation and the graduation ceremony. From Athens I keep the best memories of this American summer spent with my Bobcat fellows.
Nathália Matychevicz is an advertiser, freelancer and tourist whenever she can spare some time.