A Determined 'B' for Marketing Research!

As I received my result for marketing research this morning, I was not surprised that I didn't score well on the first paper. It was really tough. Really tough. I did the method of studying as I did for marketing 101, but this time the result really turned out differently. I really do not know how to complain more about it.

However, I would like to expess my dislikes about the text book materials. Firstly, it contains not a single picture in the text book. If you can find a single picture (besides graphs), take my head!! This would indirecly means that as we are studying the text booK, we are only reading pure words. How can we Malaysians compete with Americans on their knowledge in terms of reading English materials? Although the average grade of the class is a C, but still it is not satisfying. Not only that, the exam is consist of 150 pages!! And to remind you, the are all WORDS!!! There is not even a single picture to help us relax our eyes while reading it or enhance our memory on the study materials. Further, there are so many technical terms in this subject, they are no difference compared to a standard science experiment subject.

Well, the professor could have make our life easier, by curving or make the tests easier. But he is a professor from England. Which means that all his tests are a lot harder. I will stop here for now since I have already calm my self down. I am using iPhone to type this topic so it is a little bit inconvenient. I shall start my complain no. 2 next time when I have my second exams result with me.

My off-Campus Job

This is the off-campus job that I am currently working now. It is a marketing internship job (my first internship in United States and also in my life). The company name is IAA (Iowa Asian Alliance). It has a pretty nice office which is located in Westown Parkway, West Des Moines. It is a non-profit company which organizes 3 major events in a year. Each event has the attendance of around 40k - 50k of people which make a big deal.



I only work 8 hours in a week. It is on every Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm. I get free bus ride to the mall, and walk about 15 minutes from the mall to the office. In a good way I can get to exercise. The bad thing is that, it can be quite cold in the morning.



You guys might have a frequently asked questions. Like what is the race of my employer, how much do I get paid etc. My employer is an Asian, a Vietnamese. I have a colleague who is a Cambodian, and another intern is a Vietnamese I think. They are all super nice people. They are being so helpful at all times.

Regarding about the pay, it is a non-paid internship whereby I do not get any monetary payment during my working time. But I do get a lot of non-monetary benefits. I learn stuff about marketing, professional development, professional networking, free lunch (we often go to asian restaurant for lunch) and also I can get to beautify my resume with working on every Friday only. My employer always spend time with me in my career professional development. I am undergoing a major change in my life ever since I came here, knowing about the priorities in life and working hard towards it.

I can tell you that not everyone can be able to work as an marketing intern here. Everyone still has to go through the proper hiring processes like summiting resume and going through interviews and stuff. Many people always think that, well, it is a non-paid so it would be super easy to get in. It is easier but not super easy. If you cant speak well in English, do not expect to be hired because one part of the job is to socialize with professionals (social networking).

This is my "cubical". It is pretty spacious and nice with the comfortable chair.

This is the company's equipments and stationaries.

In conclusion, after working for quite some time in this company, I find it really rewarding and I am really happy about it. There are more to tell about this company but I could not list all the details here. Probably I will keep it updated again next time.

Random Fact about Drake (4)

There is a purpose for me to post this student ID of mine. I am not saying that only Drake students have valid ID for all of their students. Notice that there is a "Ride DART Free", with this ID, I can ride all DART (Des Moines Area Regional Transit) for free. It is a ultra convenient bus system around Des Moines area. There are a lot of buses with on-time schedule here. Every 10 to 15 minutes there will be a bus of the same number (so I do not have to bring schedule with me always). However, the interval time of the buses is different during weekends which is 30 minutes. But there are only 2 buses around Drake University, other buses will require me to go to down town. But I can always take the bus here to down town and switch to any bus I want to.

My on-Campus Job

This is the place of the on-campus job that I am working now. Since many of you might be wondering how does the working environment look like, I have asked someone to take picture for me. This is the equipment room; I am working 7 hours per week, 3 hours of it I am working in this place. As you can see, my job is pretty simple. I can always bring my laptop and text book to study for this study shift. Students who want to borrow equipment need to exchange their ID for any equipment they choose.

Here is a little details of the job that I am working:
Wage: $7.25
Equipment Room: 3 hours/week (study shift)
Tennis Center: 2 hours/week (study shift)
Weight Room: 2 hours/week (non-study shift)

Non-study shift, as the term explains itself, is a job that I cannot bring any text book/laptop to study. It is a pretty boring job, I must admit. Well luckily it is only 2 hours. In this job, all I need to do is to make sure that no one gets hurt when they are doing some weight lifting in the weight room. So, standing there for 2 hours is my job.

Out of the 7 hours, 5 hours is the shift where I can do my study. Meaning I study while getting paid, pretty nice right?

Random Fact about Drake (3)

Another interesting fact about Drake is this special person in my college of business and public administration, Professor Blum (Randall Blum) or many people would like to refer him as Dean Blum of the college.

This amazing person always try to motivate or help Drake students in all aspects, whether it is professional event, studies, self problem etc, he never stop helping them. Other than that, he wishes everyone Happy Birthday by sending them SMSes. Them refers to EACH student in the business college! He is incredibly a nice person.

Besides, when you have any problem, you can always look for him (by making appointments, and usually if you make an appointment with him today, you can only see him 1 or 2 weeks later because he is so occupied with other students). As you were talking with him, somehow you will feel secured in the sense that you are talking to such a great person in the college. Not only that, his solution to your problem is definite, meaning he gets the precised solution within minutes and he will make sure you are doing okay.

Some of you, after reading this post might want to check out his picture. Unfortunately, I have tried googling for his picture online and could not find any picture of him.

I can only express how great this person is through my own experiences. There are more about this great guy, and it is yet for me to find out.

Basketball back in Malaysia

Hi people, I just post this randomly (or just to show off) without any particular reason to share. But there is one thing I would like to say about this is that, I like my shooting posture and skill =P. This picture was taken back in Malaysia. I was not aware that this picture was being taken by my friend, so this is my natural posture of shooting a basketball from the 3 point line.

Another thing I would like to add is that I am rusted in playing basketball now. My skills of shooting is still there but I am lack of stamina tremendously for not exercising in awhile. I will try to make a bit more effort in playing the basketball in the Bell Center (Drake's Recreational Center).

Random Fact about Drake (2)

Another amazing stuff in Drake is its security system. This is an emergency pole. Notice that there is a red button on the pole, once clicked, a security guard will appear to the pole within 30 seconds!! There are a lot of these poles on campus, which indirectly create a ultra safe environment around Drake University. Of course we could not simply press it. I do not know what are the consequences of pressing it but, it is definitely not a good one. Further, the arrival time of the security guard is proven by the student senate.

Random Fact about Drake

Hi people, I simply create this topic just to make my blog feels more alive. I was too occupied with my iPhone, studies and Drake activities. Here I am going to share an very interesting fact about Drake, its Drake Direct services.

Many will ask, "Drake Direct services"? This term came across the mind of all Drake students but not others, especially my friends in Malaysia or any other states in Iowa. It is a cab system, whereby all Drake students will get a free ride to anywhere nearby the campus. Just to give you some insights about the cab system in Iowa. The system here is a bit different compare to the cab system in Iowa whereby we do not stand on the road side to stop the cab that are passing by us, instead, we call the service number to ask them come and pick us up. So, with this Drake Direct service, just call them at night if you need a ride to somewhere nearby. It is extremely useful for me especially I am staying off campus. The cab arrives pretty fast too, like few minutes after you called for the service, so it is pretty convenient, absolutely free. Forgot to mention, it is free because Drake paid for this service to ensure the better quality of life of its students.

Of course, it has some limitations. It can only fetch you from 24 street to 34 street, which is 10 blocks (2.2 Kilometers). Also, it is only free at night from 7:00 pm to 2:30 pm. If you call the cab anytime outside the range of the TIME (not the range in terms of length), you will get charged ($5). Further, you cannot ask the driver to send you to more than 1 direction. Generally, they get paid ($8) per trip that the call center assigned them. So they will not want to send you to more than 1 trip since they do not get paid on the second trip or beyond, unless you call again (well, why not call again)? And I have personally asked the driver, he encouraged me to use him as frequent as possible because they are happy to get paid by sending us to somewhere close by. (to Drake students, you know what to do)

It is especially useful during the winter since it is so freaking cold and to avoid any dangerous activities around Drake.

Delta Sigma Pi Rush

Some of you might have already heard of this term. This is a nationally well known student organization in the states. Its mission is to develop a student professionally, and of course, it is more than that. Together withh the alumni, there are currently 200,000 active members nationwide. It is really not an easy job to be able to join into the organization. If you want to join this organization, you have to search for it; they do not even set up a booth for you to register during activity fair. Note by a lot of people, it is a extremely good society to join. So I would like to give myself a try.

They have a what they called a "rush" week. Whereby we all have to get to know all of their members and make an impression for them to remember us. We have a general meeting on Monday night and I did socialize a lot. I really push myself a little to get to know all of them. Next activity to get to know them is on Wednesday, where we all gathered and watch Drake playing basketball against another University team. On that day, I talked to almost each and everyone of them, including the people who are rushing with me. On the final rush day, which is on Friday. This is really an extreme day for me. I have a job at IAA from 9 am to 5 pm. I asked my boss to release me 20 minutes earlier because I am "rushing" for Delta Sigma Pi sledding activity. So I walked from the company to Valley West Mall which took me about 15 minutes, then caught up with a bus. When approaching my house, I called a cab (which takes 10 minutes to reach my house) to come to my house and pick me up to the place where they are sledding. When I reached my house, around 5.20 pm, the cab has just arrived (somehow I timed it perfectly, serious!). So it took around another 15 minutes for us to arrived at the place and I started playing the activity as well as socializing with them.

After all of the rushes, there was an interview on Sunday. We had to dress professionally of course and they will only be choosing 7 of us to be the new member. Unfortunately, me and Mary Anne were not chosen. I think there are around 2 or 3 Malaysians were chosen, 1 from China and the rest are Americans. Well, it was not something unexpected; I would not expect too much for myself. I will try rushing again probably in the next semester to try another luck since it is an extremely good student organization.

Weekly Work Loads

I create this message to express myself for my work schedule this semester as well as to keep myself organized.

Every week, I have History of Iowa's assignment due. This course requires me to read 3 story books. I do not think that I will read all of those, in fact not even one book, to pass this course. It is not because I have low expectations on this course, just that I am too busy to read those books. Instead, I will focus my time on other text books like Global Marketing and Marketing Research. There are 2 parts for this assignment, one part is writing and another is commenting. The assignment comes with a question, and the answer of it is usually the summary and your opinions on early Iowa history. Fortunately, I will be able to see others answers online because we will be scored on commenting their answers. So I will read a few and make a summary as well as opinion (so that the grader will not be suspicious me on my answer) on my own. So this weekly task will not be hard until the finals.

Next, is the heavy work load by Global Marketing subject. I have a demanding professor. He gave us 7 homework assignments, 3 (heavy) case studies, 3 exams and a Map Quiz. Let's talk about Map Quiz. It is on 11th of February. We are expected to memorized the world map before going into the class. He will first put the world map on the board, then with some red dots on it, and we have to write down the names of the countries of the dots. Well, I do not know how hard is that, I have started memorizing it few days back (not everyday though), so I hope that it will not be hard. Next, for all homework assignments and case studies, we are expected not to make any grammar mistakes and sentence errors. For each error, we will be penalized. Earlier this semester, he listed his expectations of level of grammar through emails (there were a lot of them) and his expectations on referencing. Also, each homework assignment requires us to do research, for instance like how to find tariffs and so on. He said, if we did not get an A for Marketing 101, Never expect to get an A in this class. I was like... I wanted to drop this class and add the same subject but taught by other professor. But it seemed that he is the only professor that teaches this subject in Drake. Well, I am not done yet. He requires us to read Wall Street every time we enter class to discuss current events. Not only that, he does not teach the syllabus in class, as I said, he emphasizes on current events more than the syllabus. Good luck to myself for his exams.

As for Marketing Research subject, I am being taught by a professor from England. Meaning he uses British style to educate us (which is what we experience throughout the entire high school life in Malaysia). So I find it easier than American education that requires consistent work. But his lectures are a bit boring, I do see some Americans fall asleep in his class. There are not homework assignments; only 3 exams and a research proposal for the whole semester. That should not be hard if I read the text before going for his exams.

Operation Management, EASY I think? More on maths compare to Organization Management which I took last semester. Every week there will be a homework, it is not that hard.

Statistic 072. I experience some difficulty at first because it requires the knowledge of Statistic 071 which I have taken in INTI like 1.5 years back. I am sure once I catch up with the work I will be able to do well in this semester. =) also, it has weekly assignments x2. Every week 2 assignments due.

Economic: Money and Banking. A lot of seniors said it is quite easy. Because the professor is from India so the way she is teaching us is quite spoon feeding (like British education system does). Weekly assignments but should not be that hard.

So, every week I have 5 assignments (excluding Marketing Research). Also, I have a 2 jobs that both have taken 15 hours away from me. One thing that I am afraid is that once there is a midterm for a subject, I will need to reorganize my schedule, making it a little packed.