What’s the most essential part of a college education in an economy where graduates are still finding it difficult to find jobs?
“There’s a simple answer,” says Bentley University’sIan Cross, who teaches marketing and heads up the institution’s Center for Marketing Technology.
“We need to provide students with the tools they need to make an immediate contribution at the firms that hire them.”
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for theory in college courses, he emphasizes. But businesses want students who are not only well educated but have learned by doing and know how to apply their knowledge in ways that will help the business, Cross declares. “Theory is always running behind practice. It’s the application of learned skills that leads to new theories of business that we are also analyzing academically, using data garnered from CMT projects.”
Students in programs such as Bentley’s Master of Science in Marketing Analytics therefore not only need to master theory in areas ranging from marketing research to psychology to consumer behavior, they also need to be able to use the digital tools that transform theory into practice, even while the tools are transforming the marketing profession itself.
“Marketing students today need to know how to use Google Analytics, Search Engine Marketing and Optimization; they must be able to create and optimize Social Media campaigns in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and more, Cross says. “They need to know how to analyze user experiences, develop websites, and create personas that will define an inbound marketing campaign using a HubSpot platform. They need to know what content marketing is, how to create a content calendar, operate a customer relationship management system, establish metrics that define success, and execute strategies that achieve marketing goals, based on data-driven objectives and tactics.
You might think such advice is obvious. But too many colleges believe that academic reputation alone will win their students jobs, the former marketing executive exclaims. And nothing could be further from the truth.
What should every student in the world be thinking today? Cross asks. “What do I need to do to be relevant and how do I add value?” is his answer.
That applies not only to the classroom but especially to internships. Colleges and students need to be insistent about the type of experience students will have. Students need to gain exposure to cutting edge practices. Of course, some of them, Cross says, may actually be able to show the companies a thing or two about the latest in best digital practices.
Cross is a firm believer in Bentley’s Corporate Immersion opportunities that bring corporations into the classroom to work with students on real life business situations. Recently his undergraduate students partnered with Resolution Media, an Omnicom company, and Hubspot, the inbound marketing pioneer, on campaigns that were built around measuring digital results. Students became tool-certified and applied their learning to build B2B and B2C campaigns for partners including Liberty Mutual, Sperry Topsider, New England Coffee and others.
What really opened the Bentley faculty member’s eyes was that both Hubspot and Resolution Media have created their own learning platforms with original content and content from the leading social companies. That means that they are providing the hands on education that their new hires needed to succeed – and weren’t getting in school.
“I think there’s a lesson here for higher education,” Cross says. “I am establishing relationships with companies to bring their own curricula into the classroom. We have an advisory board that includes senior executives from companies like Resolution Media, Havas Media, and Johnson & Johnson as well as entrepreneurs and thought leaders on the front line of digital marketing. The goal is to stay relevant, teach our students the principal digital tools they need to be successful and, in so doing, to make them even more valuable to the companies that will be hiring them.”
Cross says that while his bias in favor of applied education is firmly rooted in the realities of the digital age, it’s a philosophy with a century-old pedigree at Bentley. When Harry Bentley decided to leave Boston University to open his own school of accounting, it was because he believed that there was a better way to teach students about how to actually practice the profession, Cross points out.
Students today need to learn how to practice their chosen profession every bit as much today as they did back then, Cross insists. In a digital economy, he adds, companies want evidence not only of what a student knows but what a student has done or accomplished. And it takes a firm grasp of the tools of the trade to provide the right answer.