MARS Apprentice: Real world, real rewards
On January 26, the lobby of the DeGroote School of Business was packed with students, alumni, professors, and business professionals. Two teams of apprentices, Axis and Jupiter, stood in front of a panel of judges, ready to present their case solution for Jan Kelley in the MARS Apprentice boardroom.
Unique to DeGroote, MARS Apprentice was founded by Professor Mandeep Malik in 2005 and takes place annually from January to March. It’s an experiential learning competition that challenges students in the fields of marketing, advertising, retail, and sales.
Malik says MARS Apprentice was born out of a need to fill the gap between the skills of students and the skills employers seek.
“I, as an instructor, could feel as if students couldn’t see a connection between what they were being taught and how it would be relevant to their field of work when they graduated,” he says. “It’s as if they needed to be solving real problems — and that’s an opportunity I wanted to create.”
He adds that he was also personally motivated to create the competition.
“Marketing is my subject of interest, and when I started teaching [at McMaster] I found that there was very limited student interest in pursuing marketing careers. I wanted to be able to cause a connection with the industry.”
Christopher Joannou, fourth-year commerce student and member of team Jupiter, says he was motivated to participate in the competition because of the uniqueness of the competition.
“It allows you to get a taste of what you’re going to experience in the real world, how team dynamics work, and how you need to adjust within those team dynamics in order to be effective,” he says.
Jan Kelley, an Advertising and Communications Agency, presented the two teams with the challenge of creating a strategy that could potentially close a 5 per cent fundraising gap currently remaining within United Way Burlington & Greater Hamilton.
“I was motivated to participate in the challenge because I wanted to push myself to discover my potential,” says Patrick Vuong, third-year Commerce student and member of team Axis. “I wanted to experience a program where it forced me to push myself to deliver results that I didn’t know I was capable of producing.”
Chantel Broten, President of Jan Kelley, says they have been supporting the program from the beginning because it mirrors the work the company does. She advises the two teams to “be clear on the problem you’re solving.”
“There’s a great quote out there that says ‘a problem well-stated is a problem half solved,'” Broten says. “You’ll be able to make smart, strategic choices much more effectively if your problem is well articulated.”
The judges of the Jan Kelley boardroom declared team Jupiter as the winner. However, Malik says that a new scoring system has been introduced that intensifies the competition.
Similarly to the previous 11 years, a winner and a loser will be determined at each boardroom, but points will now also be awarded based on group performance. The final winners of MARS Apprentice will be determined based on points accumulated, and not on the number of boardrooms won.
Both Vuong and Joannou say the value of the competition lies in personal growth and emphasis on the importance of the real-world experiences.
“I wouldn’t say it forces you to do anything, but it makes you want to change,” says Joannou. “It breaks you down to the very core and builds you back up. It’s a journey of self-discovery.”
This, according to Malik, is exactly what he hopes students will gain from MARS Apprentice.
He adds that though the competition is still in its early stages, the two teams are “motivated, they are competitive, and they have a fighting spirit.”
“One outcome we seek from MARS apprentice is that they should become lifelong learners, and if we can embed that habit in their personal motivation then that’s a big accomplishment for the program,” he adds.
The apprentices are now in the process of working on their fourth challenge, this time for Microsoft.
