October 2012

Students are being offered workshops, classes, guidance in making the critical transition from high school to college by creating their “personal brand” to assure the best college experience.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 11, 2012 — In a new twist on the “Brand You” trend of personal brand marketing, Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business is offering all its incoming freshmen classes, workshops, and guidance in their own personal brand management, to start their college and professional lives off on the right foot.

Dubbed “SCUBrand4U,” the program involves reaching out to all freshmen business students to help them successfully transition from high school to college to career, by cultivating a positive “personal brand.”  The goal is to assure that they’ll wind up with great references, internships, and job offers down the road.

“This personal branding initiative is a natural extension of our business curriculum and commitment to educating our students as whole people,” said Leavey School of Business Dean S. Andrew Starbird. “We believe it will give Santa Clara students a definite advantage when they graduate and begin their life after college.”

Led by longtime business and communication professor Buford Barr, the program aims to keep students focused all four years of college on those elements that make up a positive personal brand – their reputation, images they post of themselves on Facebook, how they conduct themselves in class.

The program arose out of a new-student orientation workshop given by Barr that is extremely popular with both parents and students. 

“My 30 years in the corporate world convinced me that students who excel in these ‘softer’ facets of their lives are going to be far more competitive in the job market, even than students with better GPAs,” said Barr.  “And while establishing your personal brand can be pretty simple, if you start early, in this Facebook/Twitter age, it’s shockingly easy to degrade your personal brand as well. That’s why we are focused on students just out of high school.”

The new program starts with Transitioning from High School to College and will include an initial Personal Brand Exercise, based on the work of the late Silicon Valley PR icon Fred Hoar. During the exercise, students will be asked to create a “value statement” for themselves, answering what qualities, accomplishments and strengths differentiate them from others, and what they have to offer employers.  Faculty and Career Center personnel will also provide advice and counsel to students during their stay at SCU.

The first workshop, being held in the Dunne student residence hall Oct. 18,  asks students to consider “Are you Apple or Zynga?” They will work on understanding personal branding, and how to evolve their brand value as they progress through college, to internships, to finding the right job.

The new program is expected to  include seminars for the transition from College to Career, job search techniques, creating a resume that gets attention, and interview preparation and techniques.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.

About the Leavey School of Business
The Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University began in 1923, and was one of the first business schools in the country to receive national accreditation. Its undergraduate business, MBA, and Executive MBA programs are consistently ranked among the top in the nation by BusinessWeek, U.S. News, Princeton Review, and others. The curriculum at all levels emphasizes the leadership role of business in creating prosperity within an ethical framework, as well as business responsibilities for social justice and sustainability in the global marketplace. The School opened its $49 million building for undergraduate, graduate, and professional business education in Fall 2008. For more information, see www.scu.edu/business/

Media Contact
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Relations | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121