MKTG 4920 -- MARKETING INTERNSHIP

Herbert Jack Rotfeld

246 College of Business Building

334.844.2459

Prerequisites: MKTG 3310 with grade of C or better & department approval

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Marketing Internship course provides students the opportunity to gain academic credit for completing internships with m`arketing firms, corporations, or governmental entities. Marketing students experience many different types of internships, but not all marketing jobs are eligible for course credit. All internships must be approved in advance. No retroactive credit will be given for internships that are not approved in advance.


COURSE OBJECTIVES

The internship program represents an opportunity for students to experience Marketing practice first hand and to integrate this experience with their formal education. The practical experience of the internship facilitates the education process by providing students with insights pragmatic concerns of Marketing practice and allowing students to gain a broader perspective of the profession, which can be used throughout the remainder of their formal education.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1.  Pre-Internship meeting/completion and return of employment forms

2.   Employment Journal

The intern will keep an employment journal of the internship, consisting of a chronological listing of work experiences, formal training, and a description of assignments and tasks performed.

3.   Writing Requirement/Research Paper

The intern will write a paper demonstrating the knowledge gained from the internship experience and the ability to integrate that knowledge with the intern's formal education. The paper should be at least 3000 words in length, double-spaced in a 12-point font.

4.   Nature of Academic Credit

Internships are evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Students completing this course will receive business elective credit. Students will receive either an S for satisfactory or a U for unsatisfactory.


PRE-INTERNSHIP MEETING AND COMPLETION OF REQUIRED FORMS

In preparing for your internship and the related academic requirements for the MKTG 4920 Marketing Internship course, please follow the instructions listed below.

  1. Complete the Student Internship Information Form during the required intern meeting.
  2. Complete the Student Request for MKTG 4920 Registration Form during the required intern meeting.
  3. Read the Syllabus for MKTG 4920 and become familiar with your responsibilities for this course. Student commitments include attending the pre-internship meeting/completion of required forms, maintaining an employment journal, writing a paper demonstrating the knowledge gained from the internship experience and the ability to integrate that knowledge with the intern's formal education to date, and completing an exit survey.
  4. Submit the Marketing Internship Information Form to your employer as soon as possible. Please ask your employer to complete this form and return it to the instructor within one week of your start date. In addition, please have your employer complete and return the Employer Evaluation of Auburn University Intern form within two weeks following the end of your internship. The evaluation form will be used by the employer to assess the student’s performance during the internship. Read the form in order to familiarize yourself with the areas for which you will be evaluated. It is your responsibility to follow up with your employer to make sure the form is submitted. 

EMPLOYMENT JOURNAL

The employment journal should be a chronological listing of your internship work experience and formal training. This journal facilitates retention of specific events and provides a basis for retrospection. First, begin with a description of your employment, including the employer, the dates, and the types of clients/projects to which you were assigned. Second, briefly describe the nature of your training, the hours, and the dates in a separate section. Third, a weekly journal of your work assignments should follow the previous section and tasks performed giving brief descriptions of the nature of the work (for example, industry and size), dates, and approximate hours. The employment journal is NOT a copy of your time schedule. The journal should be neatly prepared and typed.

The journal should also contain the following information:

(1) The number of projects undertaken during the term,

(2) Describe any planning or research you performed,

(3) Identify the type of work you performed,

(4) Identify the software you used to perform the jobs assigned,

(5) Describe any special issues that arose during your internship,

(6) With respect to your internship experience, describe the most helpful skills or areas of knowledge that you learned in your relevant Marketing courses,

(7) At the end of your journal, list three areas where additional preparation could have helped you do a better job as an intern.


You should be careful in your preparation of both the journal and the paper to not breech the confidentiality of any company.


RESEARCH PAPER

The objective of the paper is to demonstrate the knowledge gained from the internship and to integrate this knowledge with the formal education received at the University. The topic should be one of interest to you and relate to the practical experience gained during the internship. Paper topics must be approved by the instructor.

For example, the internship experience may provide occasions to interact with clients and witness client development. From this experience, a paper could be written on how professionals manage their clientele and market their services. Alternatively, a paper could reference recent developments in market research and explore new ways of marketing services and developing clients. Regardless, it must be an original research paper written for this class and the text must be in your own words. It is a paper of research and analysis, requiring work in a library and use of published materials, the relevant research and other literature related to an issue that has relevance for the firm.

Be complete but concise. In addition to pure content you should be concerned with how well the paper reads. Spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, typographical errors, etc. will lead to a reduced grade.

When in doubt, quote opinions directly and cite factual information from secondary sources properly. You must give the reference citations for all assertions originating from somewhere other than the confines of your cranium. You also need to be wary of yours sources. The internet, while a wealth of opinions and statements, is not an authoritative resource since anyone can freely distribute all sorts of garbage without any oversight, review or analysis. Opinions, rumors and conspiracy theories abound. Newspapers and news magazines give current information, but they, too, have their limitations. Research reports in academic journals present all materials for scientific peer reviews. Your analysis must not make the mistake of over generalizing from questionable resources and you must be able to distinguish facts from opinions. Remember, an opinion does not become a fact simply because you can cite someone who says it!! For example, if you come across a prediction that "the GNP will grow at an average rate of 5% per year for the the next three years," you must still cite the source. And even with the citation, it is still just someone's opinion.

The preferred method for citation is to include the name of the author, date and page in parentheses in the text and the complete reference in a "References" section at the end of the brief (that will not count as part of total pages). For example: "One recent study contends that all new net job creation came from firms with less that $5 million in sales (Jones, 1986, p. 17)." Then in the References section the complete bibliographic citation will be listed (in alphabetical order.)

Depending upon the issue, you should use a variety of sources, a mix of books (for background) and articles from academic research journals, as well, as the class assignments in the final sections of the syllabus. For many of the issues, you can find relevant articles in:

  1. Current periodicals such as: Advertising Age, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal,  Consumer Reports, and so on.
  2. Current academic journals such as: Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Consumer Marketing, and other journals specializing in the topic areas.
Please turn in the paper stapled in the upper left-hand corner and do not use binders or covers.
 

INTERNSHIP EXIT SURVEY
Interns are required to complete and submit an Internship Exit Survey when submitting the paper and employment journal.

PENALTY FOR COMPLETING THE EMPLOYMENT JOURNAL, RESEARCH PAPER, AND EXIT SURVEY AFTER THE DEADLINE

The Marketing Department considers the internship to be a professional activity and therefore requires the students to meet the reasonable deadlines for completion of the required journal, research paper and exit survey. If these deadlines are not met, students will be penalized. For example, students who fail to meet the assigned deadline may receive a U indicating unsatisfactory performance and therefore receive no credit for the internship.

GRADING BASIS

The grades are on a (S/U) satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. However, the standards for satisfactory credit will be high. The internship is a professional experience and you will be held to a professional quality standard with respect to organization, content, and writing of the employment journal, research paper, and exit survey. S/U will be determined as follows:


  

      Items

Points

Grading Scale

Pre-Internship Meeting and Completion of Pre-Internship Student Forms

50 (10%)

S

 

350 - 500

 

Employer Evaluation Indicating Above Average Performance

50 (10%)
Employment Journal

100 (20%)
Research Paper

200 (40%)
Exit Survey

100 (20%)
Total Points

500 (100%)

U

< 350

Description of the input provided by the internship site supervisor
The student's site supervisor will complete an Employer Evaluation form evaluating the student's preparedness for the internship and the student's areas of strengths and weaknesses. The employer will submit the student's evaluation form before the end of the semester and the employer's evaluation will be used in determining the student's grade as shown above. To earn an "Above Average" Employer Evaluation, the student must receive an average of 4.0 or higher on a 5-point scale where 5 = excellent and 1 = poor on all eight criteria. For example, the score for each criterion will be summed and divided by the number of criteria being evaluated to determine the overall average rating of the student's performance. As previously mentioned, the student will be held to a professional quality standard; therefore, you are expected to perform above average. Receiving an "average" performance is not considered acceptable.

UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE, AND DEPARTMENTAL POLICIES

1. Any student covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act should notify the instructor at the time of the time of the pre-internship meeting so that appropriate accommodations can be made.

2. All students are referred to the Auburn University Tiger Cub for a discussion of the academic honesty policy, which will be strictly enforced.