Why should you study marketing?

Marketing offers challenging work opportunities in an increasingly technology-driven business environment. Marketing is concerned with creating the revenue streams crucial to the success of profit-seeking businesses, non-governmental organisations and public sector enterprises. The marketing manager is adept at identifying and serving customers’ needs, managing communications in a digital-enabled workplace and ensuring a positive customer experience. 

The modern marketing graduate is ready to embrace data-driven solutions applied to complex customer segmentation, new product development and implementation of strategic marketing decisions. New skills in big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are frontiers to be integrated into marketing strategy development.

Employment opportunities for marketing graduates equipped with the academic and practical skills obtained in the Bachelor of Business Science (BBusSc) make the study of marketing a popular choice. 

Marketing graduates are sought after by employers across a wide range of enterprises in South Africa and abroad. They serve as interns, enter lucrative junior positions and quickly rise to managerial positions contributing to society.

A popular question prospective marketing students ask is: “What can I become with a marketing specialisation?” Exciting career opportunities await in roles such as product manager, brand manager, social media marketer, public relations manager, advertising executive and marketing manager. Career prospects in marketing span most industries. For example, consumer goods retailers, banks, insurance companies, eCommerce and digital channels, market research houses, the public sector and the newly emerging technology-driven organisations increasingly employ marketing graduates.

Alternatively, with today’s emphasis on small business, many graduates experience great success in starting businesses or joining a ground-breaking new start-up.

Students can also apply for the Postgraduate Diploma in Management specialising in Marketing once they have completed their undergraduate degree. We accept students with undergraduate backgrounds in all areas, for example, arts, engineering, humanities or social sciences, hospitality, health sciences, film and media studies, environmental and geographical sciences and law – as well as commerce. 

Please refer to the Commerce Undergraduate Handbook for more information on the courses. 

For information on applying to UCT, admission requirements, National Benchmark Tests, and key dates, please consult UCT’s Undergraduate Prospectus.