Carmela Abella on Bachelor of Science in Business Administration major in Marketing Management
Name: Carmela Abella
Course Taken: Bachelor of Science in Business Administration major in Marketing Management
Current Job: Marketing Assistant
Job Responsibilities: Maintaining good business relationships with clients, crafting project proposals, coming up with new marketing strategies.
Why did you choose to pursue BS Business Administration major in Marketing?
Because I was interested in setting up my own business someday… and also because it doesn’t have a lot of Math subjects compared to the other courses. Haha!
What was the most interesting part of your course? What was the most challenging?
For me, the most challenging part was dealing with lectures. Listening to them wasn’t all that bad, but sometimes they can get a bit boring and repetitive, so maintaining your focus can be a bit of a challenge. That can depend on the instructor, though. There are instructors that can make a typically boring subject interesting, and there are also instructors who can make an interesting subject a bit boring.
For the most interesting, I think that would be putting what we learned from the lectures into practice. It allowed us to see what it’s like to put up an actual business from scratch, and how to manage it to make sure that it will continue to flourish. It’s like raising a kid and watching them grow. It involves a lot of hard work and challenges, but the feeling you’d get in the end once you see them all grown up and capable of standing on their own is priceless.
What kind of activities did you do when you were still in school?
Selling products inside and outside of the school. Depending on the specific requirements of the subject, sometimes we’d create the products we’re going to sell ourselves; sometimes, we’d work with product manufacturers and help them find new customers for their products. That includes calling businesses or paying their offices a visit to offer our products.
What were the things you learned from your course that you found to be very helpful with your current job?
How to deal with people. For your business to succeed, you would need to build a long and stable relationship with your clients. To be able to do that, you would need to learn how to initiate contact with other people, how to adapt to different personalities, how to figure out their wants and needs, and things like those.
What skills or attributes do you think would come in handy for incoming college students who are thinking of taking the same course you did?
Communication skills. Finding customers for your products or services would require you to interact with different types of people, so you should be comfortable with socializing. Having good planning and research skills would also help.
Do you have any advice for incoming college students who are thinking of taking the course you did?
If you’re really passionate about business, I can say that BSBA major in Marketing or any other related business course would be a good choice because it’s very flexible. It won’t limit you to one specific career path, so you can really grow both as an individual and as a professional.
If you’re not particularly interested in it and you’re only choosing it because you want an office job, though, you might end up feeling a bit bored with it because there will be plenty of theories and studies to deal with.
As for those who are hesitant to take the course because they’re not sure whether they can handle it or not, all I can say is don’t stress yourself over it. You won’t be required to learn everything at once, so just try to absorb whatever information you can from your lessons. They’ll teach you everything step-by-step, so try to have fun while learning. When you reach your fourth year, you’ll be reviewing the things you learned from your first year in college up to your third, so there would be no need to force yourself beyond your limits.
