{"id":8734,"date":"2013-01-14T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2013\/01\/14\/the-benefits-of-combining-theoretical-knowledge-and-practical-experience\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:18:26","slug":"the-benefits-of-combining-theoretical-knowledge-and-practical-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2013\/01\/14\/the-benefits-of-combining-theoretical-knowledge-and-practical-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits of Combining Theoretical Knowledge and Practical Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

by Anvar Jay Varadaraj, MBA ’13<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Anvar<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As I reflect on my general MBA experience, my summer internship at Mars will always hold a special place. I thoroughly enjoyed my summer as an intern on Mars’ seasonal business, and I owe much of my success to the strong marketing skills that I received during the Strategic Marketing Immersion<\/a>. Specifically, the combination of theoretical knowledge and practical experience helped me deliver meaningful recommendations for the seasonal business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a career switcher, the marketing learning curve was steep. While it was intimidating to sit in on brand general meetings, I found myself following along with ease, especially with respect to the terminology and the general strategies that were discussed. I credit my fast onboarding onto the general Mars marketing platform to the Immersion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Mars marketing internship was atypical of CPG internships in that I had one large project that required strategic, analytical, and creative skills as opposed to smaller projects that focused on each one of these skills. As a result, I essentially had to play the role of a marketing consultant in the organization to determine the scope of the project. I found myself well prepared for this challenge as I had worked on a similar, semester-long project for GE healthcare during the Strategic Marketing Immersion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest challenge within the GE project during the Immersion was narrowing down the scope of the project. Going through that process during my time as a first-year student, instilled a logical thought process to go about solving my internship challenge. In addition, in my role as an internal consultant, my manager and her leadership team were essentially my clients. I had to ensure that I was making the best use of their time in terms of addressing questions and providing project updates. Given that I had managed our client relationship on the GE project, I felt well equipped to handle this task, and, ultimately, received positive feedback for my interactions with the leadership team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In brief, this Immersion was critical to my internship success, especially given that I had limited prior experience in marketing. The Program’s emphasis on marketing application distinguishes it from its peer programs, ultimately resulting in better prepared marketing students.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Anvar Jay Varadaraj, MBA ’13 As I reflect on my general MBA experience, my summer internship at Mars will always hold a special place. I thoroughly enjoyed my summer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":8735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[199,200,180],"ppma_author":[],"class_list":["post-8734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-graduate-student","tag-immersions","tag-two-year-mba"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Benefits of Combining Theoretical Knowledge and Practical Experience - Cornell Business Centers & Institutes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Anvar Jay Varadaraj, MBA '13 As I reflect on my general MBA experience, my summer internship at Mars will always hold a special place. 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