Markets, Innovation & Design (MIDE)

The Markets, Innovation & Design (MIDE) program will expose students to the orchestration, design, logic and strategy underlying organizations’ key marketing practices. The MIDE program will highlight the complex interplay that takes place between market research/analysis of consumer-product relationships and the strategic management of the marketing mix or brands. Students pursuing the MIDE program will augment their core understanding of management functions with an interdisciplinary examination of some of the creative, analytical and technical processes that combine to generate ideas and transform them into images, products and services that powerfully shape our culture.

The MIDE program will foster student development of a deep appreciation for the interdisciplinary roots and connections among creative and technical design, marketing and innovation. Moreover, the program will enhance creative thinking and acting. In addition to gaining a better understanding of how their surroundings are constructed, students will cultivate a habit of trying to envision how their world can be improved. Students will also learn quantitative, empathic, interpretive and visual methods to assess the relationships between consumers/users and their environments, with a particular focus on remedying unmet needs and filling gaps between current and ideal circumstances. As they learn more about the overall design process, students also will have the opportunity to practice techniques, such as role playing, sketching, creative narrative, prototyping and simulation, that will help them transform ideas into reality.

In the spring of their sophomore year, all BSBA students will, in consultation with their advisers, select a major from the Freeman College of Management departments and will complete the specific major requirements in addition to the Freeman College core curriculum requirements. Transferring between majors within the Freeman College of Management is possible as long as the student will be able to meet all degree requirements of the new major and still graduate on schedule.

Markets, Innovation & Design Requirements

Beyond completion of the Freeman College core curriculum requirements, all MIDE majors must take the following courses:

MIDE Core Requirements

MIDE Electives

Beyond these core MIDE courses, all MIDE majors must choose three program-related electives.

The MIDE program is designed to be sufficiently flexible to enable students to pursue a wide range of interests and career scenarios, such as work in market research, brand management, marketing management, public relations, communications, product design, global consumer culture and issues of innovation. Therefore, besides taking the MIDE core (the four courses noted above), students are required to choose, with consultation and approval from their faculty adviser, three program-related electives from courses available elsewhere at the University, outside the Freeman College of Management. These choices will depend on what makes the most sense given a student's underlying interests. For example, a student contemplating a career in advertising might select three electives courses, such as Introduction to Visual Culture, Film Production, Popular Culture, Political Economy of Media & Advertising, Digital Photography, or Introduction to Creative Writing. The essential idea behind this loose elective structure is to give students the latitude to delve further into their own intellectual interests in relation to the program’s learning objectives. These program-related electives enable students (with the help of their advisers) to apply a more specialized and individualized signature to their program of study. This feature, too, is part of the creativity and innovation embedded in the MIDE program.

Culminating Experience

All BSBA majors must satisfy the Culminating Experience component of the Freeman College of Management General Education Curriculum. MIDE majors fulfill this requirement by successfully completing MIDE 304 Marketing Management.

Markets, Innovation & Design Minor

The markets, innovation & design (MiDE) minor provides students with the opportunity to complement their major field of study by developing their quantitative, empathic, interpretive and visual skills that underlie any organization’s key marketing practices. 

The MiDE minor consists of three required courses and two electives for a total of five courses, as follows:

¹ All BSBA students are exempt from taking MIDE 201 as a requirement of the MiDE minor, thus only needing the other four requirements to complete the minor.

Drawing upon their professional and liberal education, Freeman College of Management students will be able to collaboratively create positive societal impacts through:

Analysis

• Students will demonstrate the ability to understand organizations and analyze them rigorously.

Integrity

• Students will possess the judgment, vision and integrity necessary to serve society and their professions.

Morality

• Students will identify creative and morally responsible solutions to organizational and societal issues.

In addition to the learning goals listed above, graduates of the Markets, Innovation, & Design program will complete a curriculum designed to help them achieve the following specific learning objectives:

1. They will understand the basic principles of marketing, innovation, & design and how these academic disciplines and fields of practice are related.
2. They will be able to analyze problems and think strategically from a marketing point of view.
3. They will cultivate innovative habits that enable them to detect problems and provide them with the impetus and confidence to solve them.
4. They will develop a design mindset that enables them to creatively recast problems in various ways and design novel and effective solutions.

Faculty

Professor: Douglas E. Allen (Chair Spring 2024)

Associate Professor: Eric L. Santanen (Chair Fall 2023)

Assistant Professors: Gabriela Diego (Practice), Annetta Grant, Gulay Guzel, Ankita Kumar

Visiting Assistant Professor: Yi (Cathy) Chen