And Marketing...

An article in The St. Petersburg Times by Sveta Skibinsky (September 13, 2005) confirms (IMHO) my suggestions that marketing sphere also could benefit using ad-hoc education system.

Here are some (or more precisely a lot of) excerpts from the mentioned ‘Practical Marketing About to Start with “You!” ‘:

The gap between theory and working reality has serious repercussions, not least in marketing — a field in which up to date knowledge of social trends and concepts is vital to achieving success…

“After graduation, marketing majors have very little understanding of what the actual profession entails, even if they have had internships in the field and done various case studies in college,” said Natalia Lantzevich, an education programs specialist at Competenz consultancy…

“The poor student has to have some sort of ‘playing field’ to go from test-books to practice. Problem based learning systems are the answer to that,” [Polina Petrushina, marketing and development director at Trust Management, a strategy consulting company] said…

Problem based learning (PBL) programs are those that allow students to participate in active educational methods, such as projects, case-solving and business games, said Competenz’s Lantzevich…

However, experts say using case studies and project methods during the course of education is not enough to prepare students for the real world. “The shortcomings of such practices within a university course are that there is little communication between the actual company and the students, the results of the project give no feasible benefits to the companies and there is no feedback from practicing professionals,” said Philip Guzenyuk, who is one of the founders of a marketing professionals association Brand People…

To work out a way to organizing a program that would include that student-company interaction, in June this year Brand People conducted a business game among marketing professionals, which focused on developing a PBL program fit for the city.
“About 25 marketing and human resources experts from leading St. Petersburg and Moscow companies participated in the game, and the result was a proposal to create a project-based business-school called “You!” purely for marketing students,” Guzenyuk said.
In the program, students from the city’s top universities will conduct market research, develop advertising campaigns, and brainstorm new business development ideas for program’s partner-companies. The process is to be supervised by representatives of those companies, business-coaches and university professors, who would grade the input of each student and help the students find suitable employment in the future, Guzenyuk said.