10 November 2010

Posted at 14:33h in bachelor, degree, education, marketing, monash, university by

Yesterday I stepped out of my last exam thus completing a Bachelor of Business (Management/Marketing) from Monash University. Well technically I still have a piece of assessment due in March but let's not talk about that. Looking back, in a concluding sort of manner, here's the six lessons I take away from my time as an undergraduate. 1) Play the game University is about playing the game. Once you learn how to work the system, achieving good grades is easy. I worked it out towards the end of my second year, and my grades were consistently better from there on out. It's not about saying the right thing but giving the teachers what the want to hear. Students aren't encouraged to apply themselves, they're told what to write, do "research" (read: plagarise off a journal article) and any form of creative execution goes unrewarded. Instead you play the game to get the grades. 2) It's important where you sit For some reason universities are far too keen on group work. Which I don't have a problem with because that's the way it should be done in the grown up world. However if you're caught in a shit group, it's too bad. Upon raising concerns with teachers about said group you'll be told that it's too bad, in the real world you don't get to choose who you work with. Except in the real world people who are shit don't get employed. And if they don't do anything they lose their job. In some cases I single handedly carried useless groups to HDs (arrogant but true). The best way to overcome this is to make sure you attend in Week 1 and sit next to "good" people and try and get into a group with them. 3) Be loud Being the loud arrogant kid in class isn't all bad. Opinionated students never receive anything but full marks for class participation and presentations. Even if what you're saying is rubbish the fact that you're saying it gets you points. Especially when you sit in a class full of people unable to speak up in front of others. 4) Rote learning is for winners Studying the night before an exam trying to think of stupid acronyms to help you remember a list of six items that you forget on the way out of the exam got me through my degree. Likewise for when a tutor tells you that you can't do an assignment the night before it's due. Challenge accepted and you prove them wrong when you smash it. 5) Drink beer with your lecturers Well, the cool ones anyway. It makes a massive difference when you can rock up to Week 1 and the tutor or lecturer already knows you because you've met them through other staff members. Can't state enough how helpful this is, especially beyond academic performance. 6) Uni teaches you to learn Most importantly; I will finish on the the biggest point. Uni helped me realise my career interest. I wouldn’t say it taught me a lot about it, perhaps a few basics, but it did teach me to get off my ass if I wanted to follow it and go out on my own to learn it. In many ways, it taught me that university couldn't teach me what I needed to know. It got me interested in marketing and ultimately advertising, which made me realise I needed to learn on my own by reading books not on the text list, start a blog, meet people in the industry, do internships and ultimately score a gig. I suppose that's a rather negative take on the past four years of my life, one that will no doubt change as I look back on it in the future. There are certainly a few teachers who do good things and I would like to thank them. And I suppose because of that last point alone the ridiculous HECS debt and the piece of paper I receive when I graduate will be worth it....

26 June 2010

Posted at 15:19h in marketing, monash, university by

Here's a slide from a marketing unit I took this semester. You'll have to ignore the death by PowerPoint. I'm sure you've seen similar statistics before. Generally taken from the Fortune 500 or similar, a survey that demonstrates how poorly senior management consider marketing. At least that's how it's explained in lectures. But that's not right. If these managers are running the most successful businesses in the world, why is there an assumption they're wrong? One would think they're doing a pretty damn good job as it is. Maybe that's exactly where marketing should be. ...

18 June 2010

Posted at 14:50h in advertising, industry, marketing, university by

In my last post I blamed universities for creating bad clients. But maybe I could blame the industry.When I started my undergraduate degree at the tender age of seventeen, I had no idea what marketing was. Neither did any of my mates. We were all under the impression that marketing was advertising, and I'm sure many would argue this perception often doesn't change, even after you graduate.Our dream of working on ads was soon crushed by crippling numbers and boring accounting lectures. But maybe the reason we have bad clients is not because of the way marketing is taught. Instead perhaps all marketers inherently want to be advertisers, a misconceived possibility pushed upon them before OWeek due to ignorance.Is the marketing industry not marketing itself appropriately to high school students?...

10 June 2010

Posted at 16:29h in advertising, degree, marketing, monash, university by

In at least two of my units throughout my marketing degree I've been asked to develop a marketing plan as a piece of major assessment. This degree, for the most part, and particularly these units, is designed to teach people how to be marketers. Or as I prefer to call them; clients.But in both cases, the assessment involved putting together a campaign. Any assignment that said, "We'll get our advertising agency to develop and build a creative strategy" would have failed, Instead, students were required to develop creative (as the client), and in most cases without any kind of strategy.Coming from the arrogant advertising side, is this not giving students the wrong idea of how things work?Do these students go on to become that client who gets way too involved with the creative? Or comes up with an idea early on and pushes it from the start? Or perhaps they'll simply be unwilling to pay for strategy because they've never heard of it before?Anyway, I think the way marketing is taught is the reason to blame for poor client behavior. Ironically, the poor campaign that results is usually blamed on the agency.And on a side note, I wonder if media peeps have similar feelings....

11 May 2009

Posted at 20:23h in sms, university by

Today I received an SMS informing me of my grade on a recent piece of assessment. Maybe the University isn't as far behind as I thought. Although I bet the lecturer and the course coordinator don't know anything about it, let alone encouraged this great piece of initiative by the tutor. Even better, it was a High Distinction. Take that students who actually put in effort and remain sober the night before you hand in your assignments....

21 April 2009

Posted at 19:11h in university by

I borrowed my first book from the University library today. I am a third year student. And I do reasonably okay results wise. Funnily enough it took an Arts unit to make me do it too....

30 March 2009

Posted at 20:19h in education, iphone, monash, university by

I was sitting in a tutorial today keying an assessment date into my iPhone calendar. The tutor walked up and told me I shouldn't be text messaging in class and to focus on the task. I explained to him that I was doing nothing different from the student next to me writing the date into her paper diary.He smiled and asked what question I was up to.Yet another example of the University demonstrating just how far behind they are.The fact I was actually on Facebook because the tutorial was terribly boring is irrelevant....

10 December 2008

Posted at 11:53h in peter wagstaff, university by

I am a student from the School of Peter Wagstaff. I started my business degree thinking I would head towards a career management. Yet in my first semester I took Marketing Theory and Practise, a unit headed up by Peter Wagstaff. Upon completing it, I had a new career path. But his influence doesn't stop there. It was by listening to his podcast, Marketing Today that I first discovered social media through Julian Cole. He also writes a blog, RenewEd, which focuses on the future of education and how teaching has and should be changing for Gen Y students. He is undoubtedly the best lecturer I have had in my two year stint at Monash. He is also the most passionate. I have no doubt I would not be where I am today without him. Not only has Wags been an incredible mentor, it's hasn't been uncommon for myself to drop by his office regularly unannounced for a chat. Along side other students from the School of Peter Wagstaff, Julian Cole, Josh Strawczynski, Rick Clarke and Simon Oboler, I would like to say thank you Wags. ...

27 November 2008

Posted at 21:49h in monash, university by

I should preface this by saying I've never been an outstanding university student. My results usually range from average to okay, occasionally I'll manage a decent mark if it's something I'm interested in (here's hoping for an HD in Electronic Marketing!). Anywho, I got my results for this semester. Failed a law subject. I think most other students would be a little concerned about this. It's a permanent black mark on my Academic Transcript. Yet I am not nearly as worried as I suppose I should be. When I threw out my resume, I threw out my Academic Transcript too. Anyone who asks to see it I think is asking the wrong questions. And even then, I think I'm better off focusing on other non curricular activities like this blog. But it doesn't really matter what I think. Potential employers could be reading this blog, so why not tell me, have I hurt my employability? Have I made it even worse by admitting in this public space?...

24 May 2008

Posted at 00:06h in education, monash, school, university by

I recently contacted one of my University's newspapers to see if they would be interested in running a story on the increase and potential of student blogging. They basically turned me down stating that the views of our blogs did not necessarily reflect those of Monash University. And it's probably posts like this one they don't appreciate. What is the fundamental purpose of University? I mean if you ignore the partying and drinking its core role is to educate, right? Well not really. You attend to be graded and ranked. Much like the rest of the flawed education system, it is based on providing the highest achievers with the best results and differentiating these students from everyone else. Likewise on the opposite where the lowest achieves recieve the poorest grades. Sounds fair enough doesn't it? Hmm. Many of my lecturers will not put up lecture slides on the Interweb. Some refuse to record these lecture with audio or video for later access. Why? Because they want people to attend lectures. And the point of that? To differentiate those who receive HD's, D's, C's, P's and of course F's. In one case a lecturer refused to answer a question of mine because it would give me an advantage over others. As she said this I asked myself, what purpose does that serve? You are hindering my education not encouraging it like you should. It's not her fault that she is forced to make the students compete but the system's. I'm not saying I have any solutions and I'm not saying the current system doesn't work. But it is flawed and just imagine how effective it could be if it's sole purpose was to educate....