What Can You Do With a Marketing Degree?

Do you consider yourself equal parts strategic thinker and creative visionary? Are you looking to build transferable skills in sales, marketing, business, and communications? If so, then you have a basic answer to the question: “Is marketing a good major?”

For a more in-depth answer, continue reading to learn more about marketing coursework, internship opportunities, skills, careers, and more.

Simmons University’s online Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) in Marketing is a comprehensive degree that prepares students for careers in marketing, advertising, public relations, product development, sales management, and more.

This 128-credit degree program equips you with the skills to become a confident and innovative marketing professional, offering a well-rounded curriculum covering topics like branding, communications, consumer behavior research, pricing and promotions, online advertising tactics, and strategic decision-making. 

Required courses include:

You’ll also complete an internship and learn about career strategies as part of your trajectory, which can help when it comes time to transition to the working world.

Are you a marketer at heart? A marketing degree could be the right fit if you:

Building a foundation of marketing knowledge is, of course, only half the incentive for pursuing higher education; the other half is the opportunity to gain a valuable credential that could help you qualify for employment in a related field.

So, what can you do with a marketing degree? Let’s explore some common career choices along with pay and job outlook data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Find out where an online bachelor’s in marketing can take you. 

Whipping up the perfect product tagline. Brainstorming innovative brand strategy ideas. Gathering data points on the latest consumer shopping trends. These are all opportunities you can potentially dive right into in the workplace, even before you have your degree in hand.

Is a marketing degree worth it? It can be — especially since it can give you the time and space to develop your skill set, explore different career paths, and network with people in the field before your livelihood depends on it. 

The internship or career services center at your school may be able to connect you with unique opportunities that may not be listed on sites like Indeed. Typically, internships last one semester, but may continue longer. Some internships provide college credit only, while others provide credit and pay. 

Marketing internships may include opportunities to work in the following roles:

Since there are so many different possibilities within the field of marketing, short-term internships are a great way to try out different roles, companies, and sectors before you apply to entry-level positions. Who knows? You may even conclude your internship with a job contingent upon your graduation. 

Aside from the principles of marketing, what is a marketing degree focused on? Each course is added to a marketing degree program for the explicit purpose of broadening your knowledge and enhancing your skills in areas relevant to the field. 

The best degree programs not only teach you the hard skills (like how to set up an email marketing campaign or use an AI program to extract data) but also the soft skills (like how to be an empathetic manager or how to prioritize your workload). A combination of hard and soft marketing skills looks great on a resume and may transfer seamlessly to different companies, job titles, or even industries, no matter where you choose to work. 

Marketing hard skills may include proficiency in:

Useful soft skills in marketing include:

Finally, you may be wondering: Why get a marketing degree versus, say, a communications or business degree? 

Generally, a marketing degree goes more in depth in business and finance coursework than a communications program, which tends to focus more on public relations and copywriting. 

Compared to a business degree that teaches you how to run a company, marketing programs emphasize how to create messaging that builds and maintains relationships with customers and clients. At Simmons University, you can pursue a marketing degree, either in person at our Boston campus or from the comfort of home through our flexible online program. 

Through the online marketing degree program at Simmons, you’ll take live, face-to-face online classes that touch on topics such as branding, changing technology, corporate ethics, the global economy, marketing theory, and social impact. Coursework is dynamic and interactive — and professors are often available for office hours if you have any questions or concerns. 

You’ll find a rich virtual campus experience awaiting you — with the opportunity to join student clubs and organizations, volunteer locally, get involved in social advocacy, and connect to live Simmons events. 

Even though you can complete most of your degree online, in-person marketing internship opportunities are built into the online curriculum so you don’t miss out on the ability to learn, explore, and connect outside of the classroom.

Last updated May 2022.