Meme Queens, NFTs and the Death of Free Comedy

Erika Hodges is our Meme Queen. Technically she is our Director of Communications and Marketing, but her real value is her uncanny ability to find a Meme for every occasion. She is a master at bringing dark humor to someone’s dark day.

Yet when recording our upcoming podcast on NFTs, it struck me that her crown might fall victim to the growing digital economy. Just like the rise of the merchant class posed a threat to the power of the aristocracy as the dark ages came to a close, the rise of NFTs may threaten the free flow of Memes. The queen may need to levy taxes to buy the memes she seeks from digital merchants and I’m not sure the subjects will go for that.

Will NFTs really be a thing? Is the free sharing of memes coming to an end? Or is this all just hype? Tune into our podcast on NFTs that will be released this week. In the mean time, check our last podcast on Meme stocks by clicking here. As far as I know, there are no NFTs for Meme stocks.

Admission into the Majors for Spring ‘21

Every semester BSBA students complete the primary core and are admitted into a major where their interests and academic performance overlap. This spring semester 545 students gained entry into a major. The breakdown is shown in the table below….

These results have been pretty stable now for several semesters with IB and Finance holding the top two positions and Economics and Real Estate having the fewest students. Although keep in mind that Economics also has a BS degree that operates under a different set of requirements.

Congratulations to all our new majors. Let’s hope the coming academic year will be less trying for everyone.

Have We Forgotten How to Celebrate?

Graduation Friday was weird.

I was looking forward to pomp and circumstance along with some revelry. Universities are good at pageantry and UCF does so many graduations that this production is a well-oiled machine. UCF delivered the pomp and circumstance. The students, on the other hand, did not deliver the revelry.

Instead, they were subdued. I had been warned about this by the event staff who commented that the prior ceremonies this semester were almost silent. It was so bad, that when I presented the graduates from the College of Business, I departed from my three sentence speech to beg the graduates to make some noise. They hesitantly complied.

The college experience is supposed to be a joyful time when you get to explore who you are, question what you thought you knew and leave celebrating your entry into adulthood knowing you are prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. Graduation is a final reminder that it takes courage and boldness of action to make the world a better place.

Perhaps we have forgotten how to celebrate in large gatherings. Perhaps we have stressed compliance so much over the last year that we have sucked the joy out of too many things. Perhaps students are focused on what the pandemic took from their college experience or are just too uncertain about the future to be in a celebratory mood. Maybe it’s all these things.

What I do know for certain is that if we want to restore the revelry and the optimism of the college graduate, we need to restore the college experience and that a culture of engagement is the way to get this done. The Fall semester and the return of full blown campus life can’t come soon enough. We need to make sure that return is worth celebrating.

The Hopes and Aspirations of our Students

This week is graduation. It is great to have it in person again, and I know our graduation speaker Laurette Koellner is going to have some great advice for our students who have succeeded under the most unusual of circumstances.

But as we say goodbye to our graduates, it’s worth noting the professional hopes and aspirations of our students as they start their journey with us. Every semester we ask students in our first professional development class about what they expect after graduation. This semester’s survey yielded 451 respondents. Some highlights….

Most important work-related attributes to you? 1.Salary; 2. Job Satisfaction; 3. Work/Life Balance; 4. Advancement Opportunity; 5. Job Security

The Top 10 companies the students would like to work for (in order of preference): Disney, Apple, Amazon, Google, JP Morgan, Netflix, Bank of America, Universal, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin. I’m guessing our students have significant customer experiences with at least seven of these 10 companies.

Given that list, it is not surprising that 59 percent would like to work for a medium- or large-sized company after graduation

The 8 top jobs of interest (in order of preference): Analyst (Financial, Credit, Budget, Pricing, Etc.), Financial Accounting, Corporate Finance, Sports Management, Project Management, Social Media / Email Marketing, Business Consulting, Marketing Analysis.

They expect to work hard: 83 percent of the respondents say they are hard workers. 57 percent expect to work 40 hours a week, and 32 percent expect to work +40. 56 percent expect to work weekends and evenings.

And they expect to get paid: 46 percent expect to earn between $45,000–$60,000 after graduation; 27 percent expect to earn more than $60k!

More than half of our students don’t think they will be working for someone else in 20 years: 40 percent expect to be running a business in 20 years (I blame Cameron for this); 12 percent expect to be retired (I blame social media influencers for this).

And 50 percent want to remain in Florida after graduation.

Hopes and aspirations are important. You can’t achieve if you don’t have motivation, but you also need a plan that you can and will execute while you are with us. Trust me, Disney or Netflix isn’t magically knocking on your door a week before graduation with a $65,000 job offer. They can hire anybody they want. Why should it be you? That is where our professional development courses, corporate partners and culture of engagement come in. They are designed to help you create and execute a well thought out plan to achieve your early career goals. That way, you can celebrate more than just graduation, you can celebrate finding that tangible future you will start creating the very next week.