Marketing and Interdisciplinary Business

Marketing Specialization within the Business Administration program

Interdisciplinary Business Specialization within the Business Administration program
Students who pursue the interdisciplinary business specialization choose from three tracks: business and public policy, innovation, or a guided self-designed program of courses to fit their interests and career goals (e.g., sports management, music management, or health care management). With the guidance of their advisor, students may take appropriate business and non-business courses to fulfill the program’s breadth, concentration, and capstone experience requirements. All interdisciplinary business students also have a secondary focus of study (a minor or a set of defined courses) outside of the School of Business.

Check Sheets and Suggested Four-Year Sequences

Marketing and interdisciplinary business students participate in a variety of internship opportunities. Organizations that have hired interns from the School of Business include AB Marketing Group, American Cancer Society, Bristol Myers Squibb, CBS Studios, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue, Kimberly-Clark, Marie Claire, MJH Life Sciences, NBC Universal, New York Mets, Premier Lacrosse League, PVH, Sirius XM, Target, and TerraCycle.

Marketing students have access to the powerhouse advertising and creative centers of New York and Philadelphia, while interdisciplinary business students have unlimited options for pursuing careers that match their academic or career interests in the city or the major corporate corridor near campus.

With résumés reflecting a rigorous education and relevant experience, our recent graduates enjoy job-search success. Marketing graduates land positions in advertising, digital marketing, professional sales, and supply chain management, among other fields. Read more about careers in marketing.

Interdisciplinary business graduates work in business fields such as sales, finance, management, and other sectors, including law, government, public policy, and information technology.

Students in both specializations pursue advanced law degrees (Penn, Georgetown, Boston) and business (Drexel, Georgetown, Penn, Rutgers, Stern) and have gone on to graduate study in such disciplines as global business and strategy, global management, organizational dynamics, and organizational leadership.

IDB: Graduates have obtained positions at numerous finance, marketing, professional selling, and general management organizations, and others have gone on to pursue further study in law or graduate school.

We encourage students to maximize school-wide opportunities, gain international perspectives through study abroad, or develop leadership skills in our many student organizations and honor societies. Our department also builds experiential learning into the curriculum, preparing students for the realities of the professional world through the practical application of skills and knowledge.

Community Engaged and Project-Based Learning

Create meaningful change while learning your craft through courses integrating real-world collaborations with community partners. When a local alternative high school for at-risk youth lost a major funding source, marketing, and high school, students worked together to create a multiplatform marketing campaign—including web design, video shorts, ad materials, and appeal letters—to increase visibility and financial support. Other students have worked with community partners to expand awareness of services for the homeless, build consensus on public policy issues, and analyze the management and marketing strategies of local arts nonprofits.

A project-based approach to learning energizes our curriculum. Students in a class on innovation, for example, work in teams to develop and pitch ideas for viable new businesses, from an on-campus laundry service to a travel app that generates personalized vacation plans based on user input. A class on law and business challenges student teams to develop arguments on both sides of a recent court decision, presenting their cases to the rest of the class, which serves as an appellate court and renders a decision. Can a university dining club reject members based on gender? Does an image of an ice cream truck in a video game infringe on the company’s trademark?

Undergraduate Research

Research sharpens skills highly prized in business—like presentation and communication—making it a valuable experience for any student, not just those considering graduate study. Students have conducted research on a wide range of topics, including piracy protection in the design industry, ethical issues in tobacco marketing and drug recalls, and differences in the privacy laws of the US and Europe.

Recent student-faculty research has even attracted notice from major corporations. One student’s independent research on consumers’ motivations for downloading mobile apps interested a major retail chain. Another student’s work on “slack-tivism”—the theory that brief social media interactions might dampen deeper, more meaningful engagement in social causes—has led to conversations with the philanthropy arm of a major health care firm.

Students who collaborate with faculty mentors have also published in scholarly journals and presented at regional and national conferences, building a network of professional connections.

Study Abroad

TCNJ students have the opportunity to study abroad for either a full semester or a shorter summer or winter term in more than 50 countries. In many cases, the tuition for foreign study is the same as that of TCNJ. Studying abroad offers students an incredible chance to gain a better understanding of themselves and the interrelationship of business culture globally; increase their intercultural communication skills; and explore a cultural setting that may include visits to art museums and historic sites as well as to foreign businesses, governments, and authorities.

There are numerous student organizations in the School of Business with high student involvement and dedicated faculty advisors. Two particularly noteworthy groups for marketing students are the American Marketing Association (a national organization with professional and college chapters) and Pi Sigma Epsilon (a professional fraternity that emphasizes the sales area of marketing). Interdisciplinary business students who want to get more involved can choose from a variety of business-related student organizations that are created and run by students with the support of faculty advisors.

School of Business Student Organizations
School of Business Honor Societies

Our faculty members reflect a wide range of marketing and interdisciplinary business disciplines. These professors bring the academic insights of scholars as well as professional experience in their fields to the classroom, tying theory to its practical application in the business world and beyond. They are also enthusiastic mentors to student researchers, whether their interest is in independent study or student-faculty research collaboration.

The field of marketing is very broad, touching almost all other facets of business in one way or another. TCNJ marketing faculty are experts and scholars in several diverse areas, including:

• consumer behavior
• digital marketing and social media
• marketing and sustainability
• marketing communications
• marketing strategy
• professional selling
• research and analytics
• service marketing

The interdisciplinary business specialization entails any interests that either do not fall neatly into one traditional area of business or cut across different areas in or outside of business. Our faculty represent several diverse areas, such as business ethics, employment law, innovation, international legal issues in business, law and policy, and technology in business.