The main reasons I am applying to Stanford GSB is to become a scholastic researcher writing for distinguished journals and a professor of Behavioral Marketing at a top U.S. university. Below I will outline why the unique combination of my personal characteristics, education, and research experience makes this objective realistic, and why obtaining a PhD from Stanford GSB will be an essential step towards accomplishing this goal. Passion for Marketing During my time as an undergraduate, I had great interest in learning marketing and consumer behavior. Courses such as Marketing Research, Consumer Psychology, and Marketing Strategy – working as a TA - have sparked interest in what constituted consumer behavior and I found great joy in investigating the factors that drove consumers in adopting or disregarding products. It has also bolstered my interest in finding out what the true nature of the consumer decision making process is and whether this is a conscious or unconscious process of reaching a decision. In addition, this interest prompted me to conduct consumer …show more content…
Upon entry, I was assigned right away to projects which involved both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Such qualitative methodologies of home visits, in-depth interviews in a lab environment (simulated kitchen), and in-store observations of potential consumers in electronics stores with eye-tracking equipment helped to determine how the attributes and unique selling points affect consumer electronics purchases. Subsequent quantitative data via surveys strengthened hypotheses constructed during qualitative sessions and validated the results which provided me great intellectual pleasure and strengthened my passion towards the field. In addition, I received great appreciation from clients and received an award on behalf of our company for my