Millennial Learning is Here to Stay @BerkeleyHaas
This past spring semester, I began teaching an undergraduate course at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. The course was on social media marketing and networking. Teaching this course was hands down the highlight of my spring semester. Being able to teach this course for forty undergraduate students who were eager to learn and propel their career was an amazing and rewarding experience.
Simultaneously during this time, I also began writing for LinkedIn, documenting my course's every lecture for the wider community. Today, my course lectures have received over 50K+ views across LinkedIn and SlideShare. Since writing on LinkedIn, I have also been reached out by many students from across and outside the U.S. to learn more about the course. The feedback has been very positive, with one student saying that they followed the course each week despite currently studying in India. Since then, I realized that I had students beyond the confines of my physical classroom at the business school. I am glad to say that I will be re-offering the course for this upcoming fall semester with several exciting new changes!
What would you say to someone considering taking the class?
Former Student Shelby Will (Vhoto College Ambassador)
Why Millennial-to-Millennial Learning Matters to Me
Entering UC Berkeley as a freshman, I immediately discovered that little resources were available to students who were interested in marketing and social networking. There were a myriad of classes and student organizations focused on the traditional ABC career path, also known as Accounting-Banking-Consulting, yet not many were geared toward marketing students. I realized the need for a marketing presence at Berkeley, thus the course was born out of passion and necessity. Beyond marketing, I knew that today's millennial students are struggling to navigate the water of professional development. I wanted to use this course as a platform to highlight the power of social networking, from building relationship with alumni to establishing a LinkedIn presence.
I developed this course with a vision in mind: to create and foster an environment for young marketing millennials to explore their passion and discover potential career paths. Through this course, I also wanted to give back to the Berkeley community at large—teaching skills and knowledge that I have learned and developed throughout these past four years with the hope of inspiring the next generation of marketing driven students.
What I would say to someone considering taking the class?
Former Student Trevor Yacovone (LinkedIn Recruiting Intern)
Millennials Want to Learn Real Work Applications
Unlike any traditional course with exams and papers, this course focused primarily on real work experience. Students had the opportunity to listen and engage with established marketing guest speakers from Google, UC Berkeley, and the Haas School of Business. Students also learned how to develop and optimize their LinkedIn presence. At the end of the course, students were presented with a final group project. The final project gave students the opportunity to assess a [real] brand and evaluate their social media presence. From here, students would critically analyze the brand's strong points and identify areas of improvement.
Groups were encouraged to reach out to social media managers and interview them to gain better insights of their brand's strategy as well as to network with professionals. Concepts and theories from lectures were encouraged to be integrated with the final project. Every aspect of the project served a greater purpose of strengthening students for real world applications. This proved successful as many students went on to intern for companies such as LinkedIn, T-Mobile, CBS Interactive, Unilever, Telemundo, and various Bay Area start-ups.
What was the most valuable thing you learned in this class?
Former Student Monica Choy (Health Connexions Marketing Intern)
Four months after the course original debut last spring, ten groups delivered a case study for ten leading brands, from retailers such as Macy’s to enterprises such as Adobe. Students were given the task to deeply analyze a brand’s social media strategy from a millennial's perspective and propose ways it could improve and be more effective.
As mentioned, the goal of the projects was not to just provide brands with fresh millennial perspectives on their social strategy, but also to expose students to the marketing world. Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the course last semester was the diverse set of soft and hard skills that the students learned. Through the final project, students were able to apply the various marketing concepts taught in class directly into their project. Below are two of the case studies that were developed by students for Deloitte and Victoria Secret PINK:
Deloitte Case Study
Victoria Secret PINK Case Study
13 Lectures and 40 Students Later: Fall 2015 Re-Offering
The interest for the course's re-offering this fall has been tremendous. Over 1,000 students, including several MBA students, have registered to attend the first day of class. In response to the current demand, the course has increased in meeting time (1 to 2 hours), class size (40 to 60 seats), and teaching assistants (0 to 3 course assistants: Amineh Beltran, Julian Gamboa, Mitchie Nguyen).
The volume of interest from the undergraduate community is a testament that millennials have the desire to learn from their peers, and in this case, about marketing and social networking. All this commotion is leading to an inflection point where I envision more millennials will discover a potential career in marketing. At the same time, I hope to see more business schools adopt courses that teach students soft skills such as social networking and establishing an effective personal brand.
Course's Facebook Event Page (Visit Us!)
Interested Students Participated in #DiscoverUGBA198,
Tweeting Why They Wanted to Take This Course (Read More)
Parting Thoughts
Before ending, I'd like to thank the Haas School of Business and my faculty sponsor, Professor Zsolt Katona, for sponsoring and making this course a possibility for the undergraduate community here at UC Berkeley. I'd also like to thank all our guest speakers and partners from last semester: Itamar Orgad (LinkedIn), Maya Pope-Chappell (LinkedIn), Kathryn Bader (UC Berkeley), Debra Goldentyer (Haas School of Business), Matt Rozen (Adobe), Cory Edwards (Adobe), and Ana Cantu (Google). I will continue to write on LinkedIn throughout this fall and provide updates on the course's progress. I look forward to another great semester of teaching and learning!
What are your thoughts on millennial-to-millennial teaching? Is this a new trend that should be adopted by colleges? Is marketing a growing career that should be explored by students? Is networking and relationship building the new social currency that students should learn while in school? Comment below.
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Tai is currently a business undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He writes as a leading millennial voice on all things marketing, millennial, and educational. At UC Berkeley, he also teaches a marketing and networking course.
Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Reach out via email: [email protected].
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9 年It would be helpful at this point to trace the originator of the term 'social media' before Al Gore claims to have invented it.
Healthcare Investment Banking Vice President at BTIG
9 年Social media is the newest frontier in marketing. Corporations and startups alike can utilize Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media accounts as their newest platforms to reach prospective clients and consumers as well as keep in touch with their existing ones. Millennials like myself are fortunate enough to have vast experience with social media. Personally, I have used social media for years to connect with friends and family by posting about my thoughts and sharing articles that interest me. By doing so, I am showing my followers who I am. Companies use social media for the same reason--to market themselves to their target audience. I hope to take UGBA 198 to gain a better understanding of the strategies that successful companies have already implemented to connect with consumers and find out what works and what doesn't. I also hope to associate myself with a multitude of intelligent, creative people who, like myself, have many ideas on how social media can be used even more effectively as a marketing tool.
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9 年Millennials are a generation that know the insides and outs of social media. The weight social media has in current events is enormous. We have seen how the world has used hashtags to bring attention to serious events. The #blacklivesmatter and its counter part #alllivesmatter are just one example of how social media brings to light issues that the U.S faces Social media has been used around the world for example the Arab Spring coined the term Twitter Revolution. From Twitter to Facebook tinder and tumblr we are wittnessing how social media mobilizes huge parts of society to act. It allows millennials to bring issues into mainstream political discourse. It allows us to keep companies accountable and governments for that matter (seaworld and its treatment of orcas or S.C bringing the confederate flag down). Sharing, liking, tweeting, reblogging, creating and even creating vines; all these are like second nature to us. We see something captivating we share, we discuss, we act. This class allows students to solidify those skills. To make social media just not something we do on our spare time or whenever we're bored in class but a skill that brings real market value. It's turns a hobby into a skill and possibly a career.
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9 年Honestly, I almost feel like this course description was written with me in mind. Growing up, I have learnt to follow my guts, dreams and instincts. My mother's shop was my second home. I was always there helping her to sell and bring more customers. I remember when I would implore on passers-by to come in and check out our latest goods. The enthusiasm I displayed for marketing my mother's goods to people was perfectly admirable. For me, marketing started as a little kid. It is one thing I have loved doing the most. I have always wanted to harness my marketing skills by pushing it to the next level. Being able to stand out wherever I am and in whatever I do is a key goal to my success. If I get into this course, I would be able to practice what I am greatly passionate about and help people through whatever field I find myself in. I have the vision to positively influence my country Nigeria. I see myself as a promoter of peace and an advocate for healthy living. I am very excited about the prospect of getting into this course. I will bring my enthusiasm, my passion and my creativity to this course. I believe in imagining with all your mind, believing with all your heart and achieving with all your might! That is the spirit I possess. I guess the saying that ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ is true. I set high goals, aiming for the moon such that even if I missed, I would land among the stars. I wanted the best education, but could not afford it. However, with drive and dedication, I studied even harder till I saw myself as a scholar of the only Center for the Gifted and Talented in West Africa and now in UC Berkeley as a Master-card foundation scholar. Thank you Tai!