OSU marketing students experience benefit of working with real companies on real issues

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Jennifer Fenimore wouldn’t be in the job she is today if not for the dedication and direction of several faculty members in the Spears School of Business. Fenimore is enjoying her role as the franchise marketing manager/development manager for Stone Trucking in Tulsa after recently graduating from Oklahoma State University. But she isn’t the only recent Spears School student to gain hands-on experience and then enter the real world immediately after graduating from OSU. Marketing research classes taught in the Department of Marketing at OSU require students to work with real companies on real issues, and in the past five years more than 1,100 marketing students have participated in 72 projects. “Along with my age and past work experience, I believe the real-work research with actual companies helped land me a good job,” said the 37-year-old Fenimore, who says the professional appearance and impressive content in her research project impressed Stone Trucking personnel during the interview process, helping land her the position. In addition, she says “the courses at the Spears School of Business are what have helped me keep my job. In my current job, I use what I learned in many of my marketing classes ­–­ Marketing in Action, Marketing Research, Consumer and Market Behavior, and International Marketing ­– along with my finance and math classes.” Spears School faculty Tom Brown, Ted Matherly and Tracy Suter have been preparing OSU marketing students for years to find employment and make a difference in their professional lives. The marketing faculty members have found that hands-on, real-life work experience provides students the best opportunity to find employment upon graduating.

“The Department of Marketing strongly believes that we must be responsive to employer wants and needs,” said Josh Wiener, head of the department. “Firms have both identified key skills our students should have, and made it clear that students need to be able to do, not just know. “We have found that students learn best by working on real projects for real companies. Working on real projects creates involvement and excitement. For decades our marketing research classes have used this experiential learning model. In recent years, many of our classes have adopted the experiential learning model. The feedback we have received from students and employers is that learning by doing works.” OSU marketing students receive the opportunity to do real-work research while partnering with both for-profit and non-for-profit businesses. The list includes companies such as Eskimo Joe’s, OG&E, Stillwater Habitat for Humanity, Spirit Bank, Kicker, OnCue Express and many others. “Projects like these give students a chance to stand out from the crowd. A recent Wall Street Journal article indicated that marketing is one of the top-10 undergraduate majors across the country, and that’s certainly true here at OSU,” said Brown, Noble Foundation Chair in Marketing Strategy and professor in the Department of Marketing. “Graduates who demonstrate specific skill sets and who already have experience dealing with real issues, as opposed to textbook problems, will have a competitive advantage in a crowded job market,” Brown said. Fenimore, who started her job with Stone Trucking in April, offers advice for future OSU marketing students. “I would recommend doing several things while in school to help prepare for finding a job upon graduating: internships, study abroad travel opportunities and networking,” she said. “Students need to realize that while a diploma is important, it alone won’t get them the job they desire.”