Marketing

Marketing & Hospitality Home | Marketing | Hospitality | Legal Studies | Contact Information

Return to the Marketing & Hospitality Home page for Courses and Curriculum

Marketing, whether or not we realize it, touches the lives of most people every day. Examples of how marketing impacts our lives include having a travel agent promote a special tour to Disney World, noticing a brand name on a pair of jeans, listening to an advertisement for an auto dealership on the radio or ordering jewelry online from a website. Each example illustrates how businesses use the five components of marketing: product, price, promotion, distribution, and people to meet the needs and wants of customers.

The study of marketing involves learning how to understand and measure consumer wants and needs and then identify promotional channels with which to communicate the benefits of a product. In addition, marketing education focuses on the development of skills that enable tomorrow’s managers to implement and control marketing strategies which include product, pricing, promotion, and distribution variables within a plan.

Career Opportunities

The dynamic field of marketing offers a variety of career paths to practitioners. These paths may include advertising, marketing research, professional selling, retailing, purchasing (buying), sales management, events marketing, customer relationship management, and/or business consulting. Typical job titles found in marketing include account executive, sales manager, marketing manager, channel manager, product manager, advertising layout manager, media (advertising space) buyer, manufacturer's agent, merchandiser, package designer, physical distribution manager, purchasing agent, retail buyer, retail store manager and sales training director. Besides these traditional career paths, a degree in marketing is also a solid foundation for those individuals interested in operating their own business.

Faculty

The marketing faculty is composed of professors who hold master and doctoral degrees from prestigious universities. Their areas of specialization are well diversified and all have extensive academic and business experience. They are engaged in ongoing research projects and are highly involved with business and industry throughout Louisiana.

The faculty realizes that students cannot get all of their knowledge from books. It is important to relate the subject matter of marketing to the real world in a meaningful way. Hence, the faculty incorporates in their courses practical training through simulations and community projects.

Curriculum

Today’s students will be the business leaders and entrepreneurs of the future. The marketing program at UL Lafayette, which results in a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing, has been designed to prepare students to compete in a rapidly changing and competitive marketplace. The managers of tomorrow will have to be well versed in technology applications, as well as, in managing service producing industries and international marketing activities.

The university core curriculum is the cornerstone of specific business and marketing coursework. Courses include English, Algebra, Psychology and Microcomputer Applications. The curriculum also involves the common body of knowledge (CBK) courses, which are required of all business majors and form the basic foundation on which more advanced marketing courses are built. These courses include economics, finance, accounting, management, marketing and statistics.

During the junior and senior years, marketing students complete coursework that specifically addresses how to better understand consumer needs and wants such as consumer behavior and marketing research. Courses that address areas of marketing strategy development include sales management, promotion, direct marketing, retailing and logistics.

Specialized areas such as international, industrial and services marketing give students exposure to the unique challenges facing marketing managers. Marketing management courses give students the opportunity to apply marketing coursework toward solving practical business case problems. Students gain real world experience when they prepare an actual marketing plan or conduct marketing projects for local businesses. An internship program is available to students who qualify, and it exposes students to marketing management practice in a local firm.

Student Organizations

Students are strongly encouraged to attend local, state and national industry meetings to begin networking for their future. Within the Department, majors can join the marketing organization Pi Sigma Epsilon and high achieving majors can join Mu Kappa Tau which is a marketing honor society. Additionally, marketing students may join general business organizations like Delta Sigma Pi.