I hope all of you must be having butterflies in your stomach about college starting soon and must be thinking about what should be done in advance so that you are better prepared for the coming academic year.
By now, you must have scanned the website at least 7-8 times, checking the course curriculum, placement reports, student committees, profile of the professors, etc., etc. So, long story short, you have a decent knowledge about the institute, but I will be sharing facts that only a MICAn knows.
So here the list begins,
Do a course to upskill your Microsoft Excel Skill and Powerpoint.
I cannot highlight the significance of skill because, be it any Case Competitions, finance assignments, any random submissions, you will have to use a lot of PowerPoint and Excel.
Learn the shortcuts and tools.
Explore the Powerpoint tool as you have many hidden functions which make the ppt look aesthetic
Every MICAn uses a magic wand called Canva and Flaticon
As MICAns, we believe in creating creative presentations, and Canva as a platform is super helpful. It allows you to make designs, add pictures, create videos, etc., on aesthetic templates pre-made by a designer, but you can tweak the layout according to your taste.
Check out this link
https://www.canva.com/
A similar platform that provides you PowerPoint templates
https://slidesgo.com/
Flaticon is again a super helpful platform, and we use it when working on monotonous platforms like google documents, and we want to make that also creative and alive.
https://www.flaticon.com/
Don't forget to practice your fundamentals
So it's highly recommended that before joining students should undergo the free course provided by google - Fundamentals of Marketing. It's a good CV pointer, and if you do it diligently, you learn a lot.
There are other courses like google ads display, inbound marketing, etc., which are accessible on Google and Hubspot; it's good if you complete them before the academic year begins.
People with Work experience get your affairs in order
Suppose you are coming to MICA with some prior work experience. In that case, you should get all the work-related documents from your previous organizations like Certificates of work done, joining letters, etc. Trust me collating all these documents in advance will save you from a lot of end-minute hassle.
Learn some marketing jargons
MICA is known as the Mecca of Marketing, so it's good if you have rudimentary knowledge about some marketing jargons like the AIDA model, brand funnel, social commerce, product life cycle, ATL, BTL, etc
The idea is to brush up on some basic knowledge.
We love ads
MICA is not a B-School but more of a C-School. I would recommend watching the latest advertising campaign, reading articles on afaqs, following the quirky marketing handles on Instagram, Meme pages, iconic campaigns like Cadbury, Coke, etc., and anything that excites you. I will also advise watching award-winning international campaigns on Cannes
https://www.canneslions.com/ and
https://www.dandad.org/. These campaigns give you a perspective about the global standard of advertising and some great insights. After you are done watching, pick up your favorite campaigns and break them down into 4 areas - Problem, insight, idea, and execution. This process of breaking down will help you to analyze better and open your mind.
MICA is all about Case studies & Competitions
MICAns have been acing B-School competitions for decades, and many converted into PPOs and PPIs for students. So I will recommend reading articles on how to win these. Understand that most competitions are based on industry problems, and COVID hampered many industries. Read about how COVID majorly impacted sectors like hospitality and travel and how they are recouping the losses. But, on the other hand, FMCG was thriving. Read more about how they managed their supply chain with the lockdown in place and shortage of labor. I am sure you will get many insights.
That's it from my end. I hope you found it helpful.
Welcome to MICA :)
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