University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business (Ranked #21 nationwide)

Marketing and Information Systems Double Major

 

 

 

Programs and Experiences 

 

Strategic Design and Innovation Fellows Program 

 

Strategic Design and Innovation Fellows is a competitive program focused on design thinking and design literacy. In Strategic Design Fellows I've learned design principles that are applicable to product design, packaging, web design (like this!) UX, wayfinding, graphics, and fashion. 

 

Strategic Design fellows explores the bridge between design and business and seeks to empower us students to traverse the bridge between the two disciplines. We take courses on graphic design, essential design principles, and brand management. 

 

Strategic Design fellows also takes each cohort up to New York City and visits companies with industry-leading marketing strategies such as BBDO, Casper, Anthem, and Casanova. Being able to learn from industry professionals is great because they're up to date on all the latest trends and have great tips when it comes to life after college. 

 

Business, Society and The Economy Scholars

 

Business, Society and the Economy goes beyond the classroom to explore the worlds of commerce and economics. We analyzed business models through team projects and simulations that challenge students to think in new ways about corporate impact and leadership. A lot of the program was focused on the roles of innovation and culture in the modern office. This involved doing countless case studies on influential companies such as Amazon, Google, Tesla, and Netflix. 

 

West Coast Immersion and Innovation Trip

 

The West Coast Immersion and Innovation Trip gave direct exposure to companies such as Nike, Amazon, Google, Tesla and Facebook that have significantly changed their industry landscape through innovative management strategies that allowed them to build a sustained competitive advantage. 

 

We visited Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco and were able to explore all of these cities and immerse ourselves in their respective cultures. We went to the top of the Space Needle, visited Portland's Rose Gardens and saw the Golden Gate Bridge. 

 

Courses

 

BMGT 458A: Design and Innovation in Marketing 

 

In BMGT 458A we learn the foundations of design, starting off by studying the history of design trends in history. I've never taken a class that juxtaposes  Bauhaus and Art Deco, which has been an incredible learning experience, and not something I expected to do when I got to UMD. In the class, we also look at fashion design trends as well as wayfinding, UX/UI, and web design. This has been a great learning experience for me, and has introduced me to so many amazing concepts and ideas. 

 

Our big project for this class was one of my favorite projects that I've done. Our professor, Mary Harms, gave us almost limitless creative freedom and had us create a business that we thought would fill a need in the College Park Market. This started off with ideating in our group, and then moved to creating moods boards, a detailed marketing plan, floor plans, financial projections for 3 years and everything else that is necessary to start a business from scratch. The project culminated with a presentation of our business plan to 3 judges. If you want to check it out, I've attached a link to this business plan in my portfolio!

 

 

 

 

BMGT 458Q: Graphic Design Workshop 

 

In the summer before I joined Design Fellows, I decided to try and teach myself Photoshop through Adobe's free online tutorials. I struggled more than I expected, but I ended up sticking with it and continued to try and hone my skills through side projects for friends or just for fun. This turned out to be extremely useful when I got to BMGT 458Q. This class is led by Kelly Driver, a senior designer at T. Rowe Price and former Design Fellows student at UMD. 

 

 

This class focuses on learning the technical and creative functions of the Adobe Suite. For example, we learned how to use the Pen Tool in Illustrator and how different colors portray different moods. As someone who never used to consider himself "artistic" this has been a big learning curve for me, but now I'm able to appreciate great designs whenever I see them. 

 

BMGT 402: Database Systems

 

Coding. This was my worst nightmare coming out of high school. I knew computers as well as any Millennial but, I didn't have a lick of coding experience coming into UMD. Then I took the Smith School's Introduction to Information Systems class and that changed my whole perspective. That class led me to add Information Systems to my Marketing major, which turned out to be one of my better decisions at school. 

 

Database Systems focuses on learning how to code in SQL. I've enjoyed learning SQL (its much better than VBA), and I love that I'm able to get a solid foundation in the language. The great thing about learning how to code in a certain language is how much of it transfers over to other languages. Over winter break I'm planning on taking online courses in HTML that way the next time I need to make a website I can do it without the help of Wix. 

 

In this class, we also go over the structure of databases and have had to create our own functioning database from scratch. This involves creating ER diagrams, relational schemas and inputting all the code in SQL. 

 

 

BMGT 468E: Smith Store 2.0 

 

In this class, our goal was to reboot the long-dormant Smith Store. Going into it I thought this would be a simple task. Order merchandise and then sell it to students and teachers. It ended up being much more difficult than any of us imagined. We were a group of about 10 business students, led by professor Oliver Schlake. It turns out the Smith School has more red tape and Bureaucratic hoops to jump through than the CIA. We sorted through leftover inventory, worked with the Smith School's marketing team, had meetings with Dean Mullins and put in a lot of hours outside the classroom. Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the semester however we laid the groundwork for the next group of students who took the class. They were able to open the store and it is now fully running and operational. 

 

There's actually a really funny story behind how I discovered this class. The summer before my Sophomore year I worked at my local AMC movie theater as an usher/popcorn maker/general employee. The job was not great (I went home smelling like popcorn every single day), however I did make a great connection. A man came up to the register wearing a Smith School jacket, which wasn't something I'd ever seen before. I asked him about it and told him I was in the Smith School, and he told me he was creating a class in the fall to try and get the Smith Store up and running again. I signed up for the class and the rest is history.