Mikaela Wellner: My MMS Course Helped Me Choose a Career Path

My name is Mikaela and I am a junior from New York City. I am majoring in Public Policy with a minor in Sociology and pursuing a certificate in Markets and Management.

When I arrived at Duke three years ago I expected most of my classes to follow the typical college framework: large lectures with limited personal interaction. Yet, to my pleasant surprise my Markets & Management classes could not have been more different.

My sophomore year I took MMS 220: Marketing Management with Professor Lin and can positively say this class solidified my interest in pursuing marketing after college. The class was relatively small which gave me the opportunity to participate in a way I was not able to in my larger intro lectures. It was also largely project based which let me interact with my classmates in smaller settings outside of the classroom.

One of the most incredible aspects of this course, however, was the real life experience it offered me. Throughout the semester, in our smaller groups, we worked to pitch marketing plans to McKinney, an established advertising agency in Durham. We went on multiple site visits to tour the agency, learned what working at one would be like, and worked directly with team members on proposing a new marketing strategy for the company.

McKinney had recently acquired a new client that was releasing its new bed in a box product. Our task was to incorporate this new client and product into McKinney’s marketing platform and optimize product introduction.

This class was so valuable because it took what we learned in the classroom and introduced it into the real world. As someone who hopes to work in marketing after graduation, this experience was invaluable. This course is so unique because it provides experience that is not offered in many other Duke courses. My work from this course has also been so helpful when speaking to potential employers. It provided me with a level of experience I would have not otherwise had.

My MMS classes at Duke have consistently been some of my favorite. The program offers a diverse range of focuses that let me pursue my interests in ways that I had not initially thought.