The lead up to this semester was a chaotic one. I will share a bit more about it later, but in summary: I had been in the hospital for a few days, and came home on the evening of my first class. This semester was locking in my final business major classes. Because of this unprecedented times, they were being offered online. As the school is out of state, this was necessary for me to jump in on. However, I knew I needed to focus on recovery as well. We made the deal that if classes got to be too overwhelming that I would withdraw for the time being.

But by a stroke of great fortune, these classes actually gave me structure to my days in recovery. And, the course load hasn’t been too bad at all. Thanks to my dear, dear sister in law Hannah, I’ve been able to pay full attention during class while she nannies my boys.

(For any parents out there- I received a grant from the government as a parent taking college classes. That money is paying for a regular sitter, which I desperately needed! Contact your school about it if it’s still being offered.)

Here’s the course load summary.

Data Science

This class is an intensive course on analyzing and presenting data with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is SO SATISFYING. I thought excel was a fun place to play with numbers, but now I see that excel is where you go to record the data. Power BI is where you organize the information from that excel data. I am hoping to find a google analytics dataset to submit to Power BI and practice marketing analytics in that way. Depending on how successful that is, marketing data analytics may be where I choose to focus my career.

Digital Marketing

This class is a refresher from my associate’s marketing degree 5 years ago. This class has been a review from what I already learned, instead of constantly intaking new information. This is great, because the repetition only solidifies my understanding. Especially since I’ve been out of the marketing field for a bit. Plus, as social media constantly evolves, it’s been great to get the updates real time.

I really enjoy creating content for class as well. I started a new youtube channel as an assignment, and that was SO fun. I haven’t posted past the first video (my adobe premiere pro subscription expired) but I have plenty of ideas how to continue that channel, just for fun. (Maybe I need hint to Taylor a subscription for a Christmas present 🙂 )

Entrepreneurship

My beginner entrepreneurship class taught me how to go out on a limb and make money. I also discovered one of my favorite shows: Shark Tank. (I love it so much that I incorporated it into my financial literacy curriculum. SUCH a fun unit!) I learned that making money is fun, but I wasn’t too great at it, and I didn’t know how to make a successful business.

This entrepreneurship class has been incredible for learning what a successful business model typically looks like. We’ve walked through the very first baby steps of a startup and are continuing through to the end. My professor is a successful entrepreneur, and we’ve learned from some of the best at Stanford.

Interestingly, I thought I was made to be a CEO, but I’m not as sure about that now. I prefer doing the work of the company, and not necessarily doing all the admin work. I prefer set hours and steady incomes. (So… definitely not a startup environment lol.) But I also like to be a part of innovative movements and changing the world however I can. I think in a best case scenario, I’d be happy in middle to upper management, but still doing the actual field work. Like a department chair member but still teaching in the class room.

Strategic Management

Yet another amazing class. Here I am learning so much about strategic placement within a job market. We’re using the CAPSIM business model computer simulation. We work in groups throughout the entire semester with our products, competing against the other teams. This competition has really been so eye opening. There is so much opportunity in the field, but there’s also the reality that if a product is failing, then holding onto that inventory is hurting your company. R&D takes time, customers are picky, and we do better when I discount a product by 25 cents instead of sneaking in the surcharge of 25 cents. (I told you I enjoy making money. I also told you that I haven’t been very good at it in the past, lol.) I made the mistake of renting my textbook. I definitely think it’s a book to hold onto.

As this blogpost title said, this is my capstone semester. In just a few months, I’ll tackle my final Gen Ed courses. I’m taking two math classes because 17yo me in high school did not take that CE College Algebra class seriously :((((

But then come May… I’m graduating!!!