Journey to MMS

Approaching the end of my second to last semester here at Duke means that I am also nearly done with my Markets and Management Studies certificate. Over my four years here at Duke, the course work and classes I have had the pleasure of completing for this certificate have been not only some of the most valuable but also the most applicable and transferable to the real world. This certificate opened my eyes to many opportunities I hadn’t thought about pursuing here. MMS changed my outlook on what markets and management was and is really what framed my conception of what I want to do post-graduation, more so than my major or minor could.

Upon coming to Duke I felt excited and optimistic about my future and my academics, but, also a little lost. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to major in or what I wanted to do post-graduation, and it seemed like everyone else had it all figured out. I knew what I didn’t want to do— which was to be on a pre-med track or to be an econ major—and I knew I was interested in people and social interaction which is what eventually lead me to declaring a major in Sociology and a minor in Psychology. However, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to transform interest into something I wanted to do as a profession, and it still left me feeling uncertain.

I had always been interested in the business and professional world, but Duke didn't have a business undergraduate degree. I wish I had known about the MMS certificate my freshman year because it would have made my class choice much easier and relieved me of a great deal of stressing. My sophomore fall I heard about the MMS certificate through one of my classmates and it seemed to be the answer to my uncertainty about what I wanted to do and to my desire for some form of business tracking.

MMS allowed me to focus my interests in business and marketing in specific and tangible ways through some of my favorite classes here at Duke. What I love about the certificate is its niche functioning as a business, management, or marketing credential that I felt I couldn’t get anywhere else. My favorite classes through the MMS program have been Gender Work and Organization, Managerial Effectiveness, and Cultures, Borders, and Demographics; any of which I would highly recommend as an introductory class or to take anywhere along the way. These classes though not applicable to my major or minor, were what I found myself discussing with my interviewers the past two years before accepting two consecutive marketing internships. The skills I developed and the material I learned I found myself tapping into every day over the course of both my internships. I further cultivated my passion for working in the marketing sector and it is now what I hope to do when I graduate. Without my personal and educational development through the MMS certificate I’m not sure that I would have realized my true drive and desire to pursue marketing as my profession or gained the skills to realistically do so.