Marketing

[I posted this in a thread at the Life After the Oil Crash Forum where the subject of marketing had come up.]

Here is an interesting fact re: marketing. The majority of college students who are majoring in "business" these days are specializing in marketing. It is perceived to be the "hot" area. A couple of years ago, I ran a sizable college internship program for a vitamin manufacturing company. We handled virtually all functions in house -- even had our own in-house ad agency -- so I did have a variety of internships to offer. To find potential interns, I got booths at a number of college career fairs and talked to hundreds of students. Business students were of course in the majority, and 75% of them, no exaggeration, announced themselves as marketers. I didn't know what to do with them! -- I had only one marketing internship. There were far fewer finance/accounting students, I think because average American students are largely innumerate, and the math aspect scares them. I had several finance/accounting internships, and was able to help more of those students.

I also placed several science majors in our product development and quality control labs, and placed some top-quality liberal arts majors (who I think are often overlooked) in various departments as well.

Among those hundreds of business students, only one was concentrating his studies in manufacturing and distribution -- specifically in logistics and the supply chain. We snapped him up but fast! The entire company fell in love with him, and he is one of several in that intern cohort who got full-time jobs at the company after graduation. His academic niche really, really stood out, as compared to all the kids who were getting into marketing because it was "sexy" (as well as non-technical, non-mathematical, and largely non-analytic).