Journey Map

A journey map is a blueprint of someone’s thought process throughout a particular experience. For this blog I chose to highlight my friend Brandon, a 21-year-old student from Round Rock, TX. His dad is a math professor at a university in California and his mom owns a local business. With intelligent and driven parents like his, Brandon has always been motivated to succeed in life.

High School

Brandon first began applying to colleges his junior year of high school. He was involved in an accounting team where he competed against other local high schools. The coach of the team first sparked Brandon’s interest in the subject because he was so bright and motivational. Brandon’s coach also helped him get an internship with the IRS, where he gained hands-on experience with accounting and finance. He thought it was really interesting to see the behind the scenes stories of people getting into trouble. Brandon also realized that he excelled in his chemistry, physics, and calculus courses throughout high school. With that being said, he flip-flopped between choosing either business or engineering as his major when applying to colleges. (Business was his first pick and engineering was his second.) The fluctuating economy was another aspect that influenced his decision. In 2009, America’s economy was unstable and Brandon knew he had to pick a field with a good job security. He wanted to attend college to gain a set of skills that would be useful in life. Brandon believed that graduating with either a business or engineering degree would land him a high paying job.

Once Brandon received his acceptance letter from The McCombs School of Business his senior year, he left behind his idea of becoming an engineer. He thought getting accepted into McCombs was too good for him to pass up. From then on, Brandon’s mindset was focused in business. He was very confident in his decision because of the skills and experience he acquired in high school.

Freshman Year

Most freshmen don’t take courses related to their major in the first year of college. Although Brandon wasn’t sure which major to chose exactly, he was still confident in staying with the business school.

Sophomore Year

During his third and fourth semester at UT, Brandon took the two accounting foundation classes. His knowledge from being on the accounting team in high school really helped him to excel in these two courses. He also took the introduction to finance course, which he didn’t like so much. Because of this, Brandon decided that he would apply to The Masters in Professional Accounting (MPA) program at UT. He was pretty confident when applying to the program since he did so well in the courses.

Junior Year

Brandon was accepted to the MPA program. He began taking more intense accounting courses during these two semesters and surprisingly enjoyed it. He landed an internship for a small business where he helped them reconstruct their accounting department.

Now

Currently, Brandon is still happy with his decision in choosing accounting. He feels like he is learning a lot in the upper-division accounting courses he’s taking. Although it can get frustrating, Brandon likes that it’s a challenge for him to tackle. He says that it’s rewarding to finally finish an assignment or problem. He’s glad that he chose a major that isn’t too easy and he would get bored in. The other students in the MPA program also push and motivate Brandon because they’re so smart. He had to adjust his expectations because his colleagues in the MPA courses are all competing to be the best. Next semester, Brandon is looking forward to his internship at PwC, one of the “big four” accounting firms. He’s eager to expand his knowledge and experiences in accounting while continuing his education at UT.

Creating this journey map for Brandon helped me realize that it’s important to understand the steps someone goes through to get where they are now. In marketing, recognizing what the consumer goes through can help you make their experience more enjoyable. Knowing what influenced a consumer to do what they did can help marketers manipulate certain aspects of the journey to their liking. It tells them what to enhance or weaken, depending on what the goal is.