{"id":1084,"date":"2006-12-21T23:26:36","date_gmt":"2006-12-21T23:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/21\/microsoft-academy-marketing-or-technical-programme\/"},"modified":"2006-12-22T01:11:58","modified_gmt":"2006-12-22T01:11:58","slug":"microsoft-academy-marketing-or-technical-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/21\/microsoft-academy-marketing-or-technical-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Academy Marketing or Technical Programme?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So as most of you probably already know by now, when I graduate from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/\">University of Kent<\/a> in June 2007 with my BSc Honours Degree in Information Technology, I want to work for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\">Microsoft<\/a>, more specifically in either the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\">MSN<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.live.com\">Windows Live<\/a> Division!<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft is a company that I&#8217;ve always wanted to work for because not only are they an overall great company that works with ground breaking new technology, that of which I have a passion for. But they have also provided me with some pretty cool experiences and opportunities over the years, the latest being my acceptance into the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/academia\/students\/student-partners\/default.mspx\">Microsoft Student Partners<\/a>\u00a0Programme. So I can honestly say I would love to work for Microsoft.<\/p>\n<p>However there&#8217;s a slight problem!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m just finding it a little tricky to decide which\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/graduateopportunities.mspx\">Microsoft Academy for College Hires<\/a> (MACH) Programme to choose out of a total of three, well two as I&#8217;ve kind of out ruled sales:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/salesacademy.mspx\">Sales Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/sales.mspx\">Sales Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/marketingacademy.mspx\">Marketing Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/marketing.mspx\">Marketing Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/technicalacademy.mspx\">Technical Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/technical.mspx\">Technical Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m just not sure if I prefer either the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/marketingacademy.mspx\">Marketing<\/a> or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/technicalacademy.mspx\">Technical<\/a> Programme, because\u00a0as it comes I&#8217;m not a great developer so you would think that the Marketing programme would suit me best as it would involve less developer related work, right?<\/p>\n<p>But the thing is that the Technical Programme catches my eye with the following paragraph:<\/p>\n<p>A technical career gives you the scope to leave a lasting legacy. You&#8217;ll be at the forefront of technology \u00e2\u20ac\u2022 either playing a role in development or getting closely involved in support, technical sales, consultancy and other areas, where you&#8217;ll enjoy impact and ownership.<\/p>\n<p>Which means that if I choose the Technical Programme I&#8217;ll get the chance to be at the forefront of new technology and play around with it, which is great, as the Marketing Programme will probably be less play with new technology and more lets market that new technology, right?<\/p>\n<p>However saying that, the Marketing Programme catches my eye again because it&#8217;s probably the most likely path to lead me to be a <a href=\"http:\/\/search.live.com\/results.aspx?q=Microsoft+Enthusiast+Evangelist\">Enthusiast Evangelist<\/a> which is pretty much what I want to do as I get to tell everybody about Microsoft and what they are doing. Thanks goes to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.coolz0r.com\/\">Miel<\/a> for\u00a0the information on it, as that&#8217;s what <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.coolz0r.com\/2006\/12\/05\/changing-jobs\">he&#8217;s currently doing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the problem is that like I mentioned before, if I choose Marketing, will I actually get to test the latest\u00a0technology, services, software\u00a0that isn&#8217;t public yet, as I do really\u00a0love beta testing?\u00a0Also I&#8217;ve never done any marketing per se at University before so could that put be at a great disadvantage? And so many more questions&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>That you can see that I&#8217;m actually having to admit that I&#8217;m kind of lost and\u00a0really not sure which programme to apply for. As I know what I want to do:<\/p>\n<p>That is beta test the latest technology, service, software from Microsoft. While still interacting with the consumers and community by doing thing like blogging and going to tech events to inform them of Microsoft&#8217;s latest breakthroughs.<\/p>\n<p>But I don&#8217;t want to make the mistake of choosing the wrong programme, because even though we all make mistakes in life for better or for worse, as sometimes we make mistakes that actually turn\u00a0around\u00a0our lives around for the better!<\/p>\n<p>I just want to make sure I get it right the first time so I can enjoy myself as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p>So hey I&#8217;m going to reach out here and ask you\u00a0kind people out there to give me some advice and ask for what you think I should do, even though I may not even be accepted into whichever programme I choose and also that at the end of the day it will probably have to be my choice.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still worth knowing what everyone else thinks I should do though, so hey here&#8217;s  them links again:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/salesacademy.mspx\">Sales Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/sales.mspx\">Sales Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/marketingacademy.mspx\">Marketing Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/marketing.mspx\">Marketing Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/graduates\/content\/technicalacademy.mspx\">Technical Academy<\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/uk\/careers\/technical.mspx\">Technical Careers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And a big thanks in advance to everyone who gives me any adivce , as I&#8217;ve only\u00a0got until the 28th of\u00a0January 2007 to send in my Application.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So as most of you probably already know by now, when I graduate from the University of Kent in June 2007 with my BSc Honours Degree in Information Technology, I want to work for Microsoft, more specifically in either the MSN or Windows Live Division! Microsoft is a company that I&#8217;ve always wanted to work for because not only are<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"pull-left padding-top-25\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/21\/microsoft-academy-marketing-or-technical-programme\/\" class=\"btn btn-theme\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Microsoft Academy Marketing or Technical Programme?&#8221;<\/span> <i class=\"fa fa-fw fa-long-arrow-right\"><\/i> <\/a>  <\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}