New Northwestern Career Video Series Tells You How to Own Your Career
The Career Management Center (CMC) at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management recently launched the “Own Your Own Career” video series aimed to develop brave leaders.
The series was created for prospective and current students, along with alumni, to discuss aspects of managing a career throughout its life cycle. The videos also touch on how Kellogg students can bring value to employers and demonstrate the qualities they seek.
The goal of the video series is not only to help students launch their careers, but also to help them gain the skills and mindset they need to manage their careers over a lifetime, explains Liza Kirkpatrick, senior director of the CMC for the full-time MBA program at Kellogg.
Kellogg Senior Director of Career Management Liza Kirkpatrick
“To that end, we enlisted some of the best minds at Kellogg to address topics that are foundational to owning your career—developing your network, career agility, resiliency, selling your career, and leadership.”
Kirkpatrick continues, “These quick videos tell a narrative about career management that will resonate with and be informative to a broad array of audiences, including prospective and current students.”
The first four episodes of the “Own Your Own Career” series are already online.
- Episode 1: Starting the Career Journey—The first episode highlights three different individuals: Liza Kirkpatrick, Adnan Rukieh, director of the CMC for the executive MBA and evening & weekend MBA; and Matthew Temple, director of the CMC for alumni career and professional development. Together they discuss how individuals can start their career right now.
- Episode 2: Professor Harry Kraemer on Networking—The second episode delves into the importance of networking, emphasizing the value of helping others so they might return the favor in the future. Kraemer talks about networking as a lifelong journey and a key to reaching the C-suite.
- Episode 3: Associate Dean and Professor Bernie Banks on Leadership—This third episode discusses what it takes to be an influential leader who inspires people to perform. Banks dives deep into the situational nature of leadership and how to get people to fulfill your expectations.
- Episode 4: Professor Carter Cast on Career Agility—In episode four, Cast talks about being self-reflective during a career transition. He encourages viewers to understand their strengths and weaknesses and to think several steps ahead when it comes to their career.
“The video series enhances and expands the CMC’s foundational work by highlighting faculty and industry thought leaders who can provide practical examples based on their experience of how to actively manage or own one’s career,” Kirkpatrick says.
“The series provides a roadmap for being proactive and present in your own career development and encourages students to continue asking the right questions to shape their career, not only while looking for a job, but throughout their entire career life cycle.”
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
What Chicago MBAs Can You Earn the Fastest?
Here’s a lesson everyone learns well before ever stepping foot into business school: time is money.
Some students want to complete their MBA coursework as quickly and efficiently as possible. That’s where accelerated MBA programs come into play: in only 12 months, those who earn an accelerated MBA reenter the job market ready to start their next career.
Accelerated programs— also known as One-Year MBA programs—are designed for students who have clear ideas for what they want to do after graduation, as well as those who already have a strong base in business.
While one-year MBA programs are popular in Europe, they are less common in the U.S. However, several top business schools in the Chicago metro feature accelerated MBA programs.
Let’s take a look:
University of Illinois at Chicago Accelerated MBA Program – Under 12 Months
The Liautaud Graduate School of Business Accelerated MBA launched in fall 2015 and was designed for recent graduates or students with limited work experience to develop knowledge of business principles and skills in three semesters of full-time study.
Students begin the program by taking core courses—financial accounting, corporate finance, marketing, microeconomics, operations management, and organizational behavior—before moving on to advanced electives. Core coursework is completed in a cohort during the fall and spring semesters. The final semester may be completed in the summer semester or in the subsequent fall semester. This degree can be completed in under one year by students who carry a heavy course load each semester.
Kellogg Accelerated MBA – 12 Months
The Northwestern Kellogg School of Management was the first top-tier business school to offer a One-Year MBA program, launching the program more than 50 years ago. The degree option was designed for students who have both a business-related degree and several years of work experience. Fun fact: Kellogg has increased the size of the accelerated program by nearly 20 percent over the past two years.
Kellogg’s Accelerated MBA allow students to bypass core classes. Required courses are taken in the summer, and elective courses taken in the fall, winter, and spring. Students take at least two summer courses in Leadership and Business Strategy, a Crisis Management half credit course right before the fall term, and then join second-year MBA students for the final 13 courses before earning their degree.
Notre Dame One Year MBA Program – 12 Months
Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business’ One Year MBA, located just outside of Chicago on the border of Indiana, begins in May and ends the same month of the following year. The program starts with a 10-week summer session before students join classes with other MBA students in the fall and spring. Summer courses include leadership & organizational behavior, marketing management, and strategic essentials. Following the summer session classes, students declare a concentration in either business analytics, business leadership, consulting, corporate finance, innovation & entrepreneurship, investments, or marketing.
The immersive Mendoza College of Business’ One Year MBA includes international expeditions / Photo via morrisinn.nd.edu
Notre Dame’s One Year MBA also has an international immersion option. Between fall break and Christmas, one year students take a full schedule of MBA courses in partnership with Universidad Catholica in Chile. In addition to business courses in English, students will have the opportunity to learn or improve their Spanish language skills. These class feature numerous travel opportunities for students to explore the Andes region, including trips to Chile’s Atacama Desert, Machu Picchu in Peru, and multi-day trekking in Patagonia. Read more about Mendoza’s Global Opportunities here.
Northern Illinois University One Year MBA Program – 12 Months
Unlike most accelerated programs, NIU’s One-Year program accepts one cohort each winter. Classes begin in January and students finish coursework in 12 months by attending class just two evenings per week. Classes are further broken down into groups, which are expected to meet up at least once per week outside of normal classroom hours.
The program also includes a nine-day international trip, which is usually scheduled in March. These experiences generally include a combination of company visits, government briefings, and university lectures. Recent international immersions have had students visiting places like Lisbon and Barcelona.
Northern Illinois University Fast Trak MBA – 12 Months
NIU is also unique in that it offers two different MBA options that can be copleted in 12 months or less. The school’s Fast Trak MBA is a day-time, 12-month program with required international experiences in Bordeaux, France or Murcia, Spain. Students attend classes Monday through Friday during spring and fall semesters.
NIU’s Fast Trak MBA has all students enter and experience the program together and begins with a mandatory orientation session in mid-August for all students. The MBA program is broken up into five modules, with students taking between two and four courses during these five-to-eight week intensive class blocks. Students enrolled in the program also have the opportunity to earn a second Masters degree in International Management from IAE the Bordeaux University School of Management or a Master of International Management from the ENAE School of Business in Murcia, Spain.
For more information on Chicago MBA programs, click here.
Amazon, Philly Win Super Bowl According to Northwestern Kellogg
Philadelphia football fans took to the streets, toppling cars, scaling street lamps, and setting at least one fire to celebrate their beloved Eagles’ first-ever Super Bowl win, 41 to 33 against the New England Patriots. But according to MBA students at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, e-commerce giant Amazon was the victor in terms of best ads of the night.
On Sunday, as the game got underway in minus-2-degree Fahrenheit Minneapolis, approximately 50 Kellogg students teamed up with marketing professors Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker to determine the night’s winners and losers in the battle of the brands. Advertisers spend more than $2 billion each year and roll out highly anticipated Super Bowl commercial spots in an effort to imprint their brands in the minds of millions of spectators—some wowing and others bombing in the process.
Kellogg students watch commercials during the Super Bowl at the Allen Center Atrium in Evanston, Illinois, February 4, 2018. Photo by Jim Young for Kellogg
Armchair spectators around the world pick their own winners and losers among the ads, but for the 14th year running, Kellogg students applied a unique framework for evaluating an ad’s brand-building potential as part of last night’s 2018 Kellogg School Super Bowl Ad Review. Using the ADPLAN framework to evaluate each ad according to six critical criteria—Attention, Distinction, Positioning, Linkage, Amplifications and Net Equity—the Kellogg students determined the winner of the night to be Amazon with its “Alexa Loses Her Voice” commercial spot. Also scoring highly were Mountain Dew, Doritos, Tide, Avocados from Mexico, and Wendy’s.
Joining the Pats in defeat, according to the Kellogg review, were Squarespace and T-Mobile, which each received “F” grades for least effective advertising during the game.
“Amazon used a cast of celebrities that focused us on the brand, reinforced the equity in Alexa, and ultimately was fun to discuss and share with those around you,” Professor Rucker said in a statement. The Amazon ad included appearances by Cardi B, Rebel Wilson, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “However, Squarespace and T-Mobile both missed the mark with questionable positioning and unclear calls to action,” continued Rucker.
Kellogg students analyzing Super Bowl ads in real time. Photo by Jim Young for Kellogg
Professor Calkins called attention to two trends that emerged across the big game’s ads—a competitive angle and philanthropy. “As competitive as the game was, the category wars were equally competitive,” Calkins said in a statement. “For example, there was hard hitting competition in the wireless wars with some brands calling one another out,” he noted. In addition to poorly performing T-Mobile, wireless advertisers included Sprint and Verizon, which the Kellogg student review team each awarded “B” grades.
“Many brands tried to appeal to viewers through philanthropic causes, including Toyota, Ram, and Hyundai,” Calkins added. Ram, for its part, sought to sell its trucks using images of people helping others with a sermon given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the voice over. The ad concluded with the phrase “Built to Serve” flashed on the screen alongside a Ram logo. Unfortunately for Ram, the social media backlash was fast and furious.
“A Martin Luther King Jr speech to sell @Dodge Ram trucks? Totally offensive #mlk,” wrote one user on Twitter.
Several other tweets expressed similar sentiments:
There was audible painful groaning at the Super Bowl party I’m at as everyone realized Dodge Ram was trying to profit off of an MLK speech
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) February 5, 2018
Not sure MLK’s dream was to drive a Dodge Ram.
— ItsTheReal (@itsthereal) February 5, 2018
“I have been to the mountaintop. And I got there in a Ram truck.” – MLK
— SportsPickle (@sportspickle) February 5, 2018
The Kellogg student team gave the Ram commercial a “C” grade overall, but Calkins had more to say in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s the wrong mistake to make given everything that’s going on in the U.S. right now,” he told the Times. “There’s so much emotion right now around race in this country that this was a high-risk move, and clearly it’s not going over very well,” he continued.
“I think it was well intentioned, but they’re going to have a lot of explaining to do,” Calkins continued. “They did not release this ahead of time, so they went for the surprise. They got that, but at the same time they now have a big problem with feedback and people being upset.”
Though many on Twitter directed their ire toward Dodge—the Detroit-based car manufacturer founded by two brothers of that name in the early 1900s—the Ram Truck brand was officially separated from the Dodge car brand in 2009 as part of an acquisition by Italian automaker Fiat S.p.A. Its successor, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, is the current owner of the Ram Tuck brand.
Perhaps some of the confusion around brand will be a boon to Ram’s owner as it attempts to recover from its Super Bowl fumble. As for whether ad champion Amazon will look favorably on football champion Philadelphia as a spot for its future HQ2—another topic of speculation on social media last night—only time will tell. What we do know is that the students at Kellogg will carry lessons learned from advertising’s biggest night along with them into their future careers in marketing.
For the full 2018 Kellogg School Super Bowl Ad Review results, click here.
To learn more about the Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review, click here.
This article was republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
What are the Greenest Business Schools in the U.S.?
Earlier this month, the Global Hub at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification, becoming only the second building on the Northwestern campus to earn the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest green building rating.
The 415,000-square-foot Global Hub, which opened in March 2017, was designed with a low carbon footprint in mind. It is the largest of Northwestern’s 12 LEED-certified buildings. “Achieving LEED Platinum certification for the Global Hub underscores Kellogg’s strong commitment to sustainability,” Kellogg Chief Operating Officer William Garrett said in a press release. “A world-class facility demands world-class practices, and the Global Hub checks all of the boxes: It minimizes its carbon footprint, is comfortable and healthy for its occupants, and encourages collaboration and a sense of community.”
The building is a marvel of modern architecture and design. It taps into geothermal energy systems underneath the ground for efficient heating and cooling and uses nearly 6,000 fixtures of LED lighting to reduce energy use. The building also has an advanced ventilation system to circulate fresh ar and uses daylight sensors to minimize the need for artificial lighting.
Overall, the Global Hub earned 85 out of a possible 110 points on the LEED scale, including:
- 26 out of 35 points for energy and atmosphere,
- 7 out of 14 points for materials and resources,
- 8 out of 10 points for water efficiency,
- 23 out of 26 points for location,
- 11 out of 15 points for indoor environmental quality, and
- 10 out of 10 points for the design process and regional priority categories.
“We are proud to have successfully integrated best-in-class sustainability with a stunning architectural design, proving that excellence in design and sustainability are not mutually exclusive,” said Bonnie Humphrey, director of design for facilities.
Of course, Kellogg isn’t the only business school to embrace environmentally conscious building practices for its new facilities. It’s a practice we’re seeing across the board at various top schools.
For example, Harvard Business School has a Sustainability Plan that was adopted in October 2014 to reduce greenhouse gases, improve energy efficiency, reduce water usage and waste, and more. Already, the university has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 49 percent, its energy use by 33 percent, and its water use by four percent.
MIT Sloan School of Management’s newest building, the Joan and William A Porter 1967 Center for Management Education, also known as E62, was designed with energy efficiency in mind as well. Among its sustainable features are light-sensitive window shades, a green roof, and an irrigation system that minimizes water use by responding to changes in weather.
And not to be left out, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business designed its recently constructed Chou Hall to become the nation’s greenest academic building. In addition to LEED Platinum certification, Chou Hall was designed to attain WELL certification, an added accolade given to buildings that promote user health and well-being. Toward this goal, its design includes rainwater cisterns and 24,300 square feet of exterior windows in addition to efficient heating, cooling, and lighting systems.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Comparing The U.S. News Full-Time and Online MBA Rankings
When it comes to business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report issues one of the most comprehensive annual lists. The annual rankings includes separate lists for the “Best Business Schools” and the “Best Online MBA Programs,” but deciding which format is right for you can still be tricky. Continue reading…
Kings of the North: Should You Get a Part-Time MBA in Chicago or Toronto?
In many ways, Chicago and Toronto are very similar world class cities: Both are situated on a Great Lake, host an “Original Six” hockey team, and both metros suffer from “second city” inferiority complexes. Both metros also have plenty of competitive business school options for professionals who want to earn an MBA. Continue reading…
