Review: Principles of Marketing (Professor in a Box)

Does your student desire to have a career in business, or aspire to own a business one day? If so, basic marketing knowledge will be valuable in working toward his or her goals. Professor in a Box has recently released Principles in Marketing, a college-level marketing course for high school students with an interest in business. Students completing this course will also be prepared for the CLEP Principles of Marketing Exam.

Suitable for any high school level student with basic reading and math skills, there are no prerequisites for this course. In Principles in Marketing, Dr. Julie Pirsch, Ph.D. covers 19 chapters of typical introductory marketing material in 28 lessons.  The course can be completed in a semester with 2 lessons a week, a standard college pace, or in 28 weeks at 1 lesson a week.  The lectures are presented as flash lectures, in 1-2 parts, with 10-20 slides each.  The students are presented with audio of the professor that correlates with the self-advancing slides. Each lecture is approximately 30 minutes long. You are able to sample Chapter 1 in its entirely to get a feel for the style of the instructor and presentation.

I felt the content and delivery of instructor was fairly typical of a first year college-level marketing course (and I’ve had a handful of marketing courses in my day for good comparison). The instructor was easy to listen to and follow. While I would caution that if your student isn’t ready for a lecture style presentation, you might want to wait a bit for the course, it is also a great exposure to a formal lecture style course that students might see the first year of college.

This is a completely independent course and extremely easy to use.  There is no textbook to read and students simply watch the lecture, spend some time reviewing the lesson’s concepts, investigate online resources by chapter, and take the quiz.  Each lesson has a multiple-choice quiz, which takes about 15 minutes to complete; there are also 3 exams for the course.

I can’t say my daughter loved the course, but she felt the presentation and method were fine and it would certainly be manageable to carry through to the end of the course.  Given that it is an introductory course on a topic that is much more exciting when studied at higher levels, I wasn’t exactly surprised she didn’t die of excitement over the course. One of the very reasons to take such a course that prepares for the CLEP is so that you can test out of it for college and move on to the more exciting material!

She mentioned that she liked that you could watch lectures whenever you wanted, unlike the numerous live online classes she’s taken.  From this I gathered that she felt the course lectures had a class feel, rather than learning from a book, or watching a course on DVD.

It would have been nice if the quizzes and exams had some sort of record keeping ability.  The student is told whether an answer is correct or incorrect when each individual answer when submitted, then given a overall grade at the end.  Then the student has the option to go over the quiz and review selections and answers. However, once exited, a record of those answers are not kept; the student needs to record the score before leaving the quiz. There is a positive that the quizzes and exams can be taken over and over for review without evidence of previous answers.

At first I wasn’t sure about the lack of a textbook and I was worried about the course being thorough enough.  This was an unfounded concern. Then it occurred to me that I never actually read much of my marketing textbook in college, mostly because the material was covered again in the lecture. Rather than Principles of Marketing lacking with a lecture-only format, it is simply efficient.

Overall, efficient - and thorough - is how I would describe Professor in a Box’s Principles of Marketing. It gets the job done as an introduction to marketing and preparation for the CLEP exam.  Principles of Marketing is available from Professor in the Box for $119.99. If you aren’t happy with the program after working through the first 3 chapters, it comes with a full money back guarantee. Professor in a Box also sells a Financial Accounting course that may be of interested to your future entrepreneurs.

See what others have to say about this product by visiting the official TOS Crew blog!

Disclaimer: This review was provided as a result of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Crew. I was provided the product free of charge in exchange for my honest review. I have received no other compensation. I strive to give a balanced overview of each product, detailing my opinion of both pros and cons and how the product worked for my family. What works for one family may not work for another. I encourage you to read reviews of other Crew members and research sufficiently to determine if any product will be a benefit to your homeschool.