This week’s Campus Celebrity is making a major impact on campus as she finishes up last-minute details for her big marketing event. Irene Truong serves on the executive committee of MUSE and is the Conference Co-Chair for the 2013 MARC Conference. This down-to-earth student is one of the many people who Penn should thank for organizing an extensive day of networking this Friday. When Irene isn’t stressing about OCR or slowly chipping away at things on her extensive “to do” list, she embraces fleeting moments of relaxation by stimulating her outdoorsy persona or by having a therapeutic cooking session.
Name: Irene Truong
Year: 2014
School: Wharton School
Major/Concentration: Marketing, Finance
For all the readers who aren’t familiar with the MARC conference, can you give us a sense of what the conference is really about?
The MARC Conference is one of the two biggest annual events put on by MUSE (Marketing Undergraduate Student Establishment). As opposed to the other event put on during the Fall semester (the WUMC, Wharton Undergraduate Marketing Conference), MARC is a very recruiting-oriented conference that’s meant to connect talented undergraduate students with top companies in marketing, advertising and retail – areas of business that are underserved and underemphasized here at Penn in comparison to the more popular routes of finance and consulting.
What is your role in setting up and planning MARC?
I, along with my partner Kevin Yin, serve as the co-chair of MARC 2013. This role encompasses literally everything from talking to companies in order to secure attendance to deciding what catering company we want at our networking lunch. As MARC co-chairs, we are also expected to be the point-person for anything MARC-related, and our work so far has required us to reach out to and work with many people, including members of the Wharton administration and Wharton Retail Club.
What are some of the companies we can expect to see at the conference?
We’re very excited about MARC 2013’s fantastic lineup of companies, which include many prominent companies such as Microsoft, Nielsen, Tommy Hilfiger and Macy’s. The best thing about this year’s lineup is that there will likely be something for everyone; for example, students interested in interning at high-end fashion retailers can look forward to meeting representatives from Saks Fifth Avenue or Ralph Lauren at MARC. Students who are looking for something more quantitative will have the opportunity to talk to representatives from Nielsen and dunhumby.
When is it? Who can go?
MARC will be taking place on Friday, January 25th, 2013. Although the conference is scheduled to take place all-day, the case-competition segment in the morning is open only to those students who have pre-registered their teams for the competition. However, the networking lunch, keynote speech and career fair are open to walk-ins from students of all years (though I might add that the networking lunch is currently over-capacity right now, so if you’re hoping to get a spot in the lunch on the day of, arrive early!)
Visit www.whartonmarc.com for a more detailed agenda of events.
What can people expect to get out of it?
Students can expect to get the opportunity to interact with professionals from the areas of marketing, advertising and retailing and to learn more about any possible internships/full-time jobs available to them.
Why did you get involved? What has been your favorite part of the experience so far?
I actually started getting involved with MARC back in sophomore year, when I was just a member on the conference committee responsible for planning the event. Although it’s definitely not an easy job, I saw how the experience greatly pushed people to sharpen their organizational, time-management and interpersonal skills. My favorite part of the experience so far are the moments when we manage to secure participation from a company after months of talking with them and negotiating back and forth about the possibility of attendance; it feels great knowing that we managed to get another company that students would look forward to meeting at the event.
Outside of class or extra-curricular activities, what else do you like to do?
I’m a very outdoorsy person, so I love doing physical activities like swimming, rock-climbing and ice-skating. I’ve also very recently gotten into the habit of learning how to cook for myself; it’s healthy, therapeutic and much more satisfying to have whipped something yummy up by yourself from scratch…it’s a real shame that not a lot of college kids cook more.
What are you up to on a typical Sunday night? Scrambling to finish all the readings and problem sets I put off all weekend, LOL
Favorite Penn moment so far: Spring Fling 2011!! Fling my freshmen year was awesome; after listening to Lupe Fiasco’s killer performance, I stayed up until sun-rise with my roommates and a visiting high-school friend talking about anything and everything. It’s one of those simple yet absolutely satisfying moments in life that you never forget.
One piece of advice for freshmen girls about Fling: Make sure you have a solid group of friends you’ll do things with during Fling; the right people, above everything, will make or break your experience.
Favorite day: Friday – no matter how bad the end of the week is, you’ll always have the weekend to look forward to.
What food could you live off of forever? Peanut butter
Favorite restaurant on campus: Bobby’s Burger Palace. The sweet potato fries are unbeatable!!