Noel Lee — Head Monster — speaks to the JMGEM students at a completion dinner
For all students graduating from the jMGEM program, finding a job or internship afterward is a very big priority. Due to their challenging work load, their externship projects and study tours to New York and Las Vegas, students are left with minimal time to devote to job searching. However, with the support of the jMGEM Director, Mouwafac Sidaoui and other resourceful staff at USF, eight students received paid internships:
- Tammy Chang, Max Llobet Roel, Sherry Huang, Isabel Gil-Jimenez, received placements at Monster Cable Productions. After spending 3.5 months working over the summer with Monster Cable in groups as part of their coursework, the staff at Monster found the students to be a valuable asset to their team, and offered them 4-month contracts. Tammy, Max, Sherry, and Isabel are currently doing analysis of competitors at multiple price points, both online and offline; they are also focusing their research on trend analysis of feature sets or next-gen technology.
- Juan Mena Canellas, Adrian Escude-Moreno, and Alejandro Claros Pamias received placements with a startup company; the info is not public yet. As part of their coursework in the summer, the students worked closely with two executives from the company who decided to extend 4-month contracts to our graduates.
- Jose Maria de Albert received a 4-month contract with Espirito Santo Investment in NYC. Jose is working with the Mergers and Acquisitions group focusing on research and analysis.
For these eight international students, securing an internship enables them to stay in the USA — gaining real work experience and taking that with them into the future, whether they wish to stay longer in the USA, return home, or go elsewhere abroad.
Three other students are about to secure full time positions in the Bay Area. More details later…
This is a huge success for the jMGEM program.
YAO Ming Project: YAOMONSTER, Description and Post-Script
As part of the externship arrangement with Monster Cable — who sponsored the jMGEM program —15 JMGEM students were engaged to work on the Yao Ming/YAOMONSTER project. This was a major push by Monster to promote its brand in mainland China by partnering with and leveraging Yao’s great popularity and presence in the Chinese/Asian market. Over the course of their stay at Monster, our students worked on various projects: customer market research, evaluating and researching Yao’s past/present branding image and partnerships; and, determining appropriate marketing channels to leverage Yao’s influence and to establish the necessary marketing strategy to link Yao’s different images (athlete, investor, hero, worldly man) to Monster’s line of products.
Currently, the CEO of Monster — Noel Lee, the “Head Monster” — reported that the Yao Ming project was deemed a successful launch on many different levels, and the combined efforts of our students played a significant role. Students were able to establish the necessary elements needed to connect with the Chinese audience and potentially establish a partnership with the Taiwanese market. Monster is now making an effort to further their penetration into China, but have also started an initiative to partner with other Asian countries, such as Korea. The students’ work ultimately contributed to determining the demand and the possibility of a complete launch into Asia, and has helped Monster make a “Monstrous” launch effort happen.
For most of the time that our students worked on the YAOMONSTER project it was a secret, proprietary operation. It has now become public.
