Professional Associations

When I was researching about professional associations, I found many associations that were relevant to my major which Business Administration. I thought many of them were interesting and impressive. The first professional association that I found to be interesting and relevant to my major was the I.A.A (International Advertising Association.) I think I found this association to be interesting because last semester I took a marketing class, after taking it I was interested in how advertising works. Through the website, I was able to learn that the I.A.A. are basically a international network of professional marketers and advertisers that set and maintain the standards in their industry. Some of the things the I.A.A do are: promote freedom of commercial speech, fight unwarranted regulation, create industry forums or assemblies that tackle issues with a single global voice and encourage and promote self-regulation. I think in today's era, where (thanks to technology), we are able to promote in more places then before, such as on the Internet, on text messages, and spam emails; it's important to have people from that profession standing together and willing to represent the common interests of all advertisers, advertising agencies, and the media. I also think this benefits the public as well. Marketing communications is a way for customers to understand about what kind of products are out there, so the I.A.A. work hard in order to protect the freedom of commercial speech and consumer choice to ensure that goods and services are if not always, most of the time, legally produced and sold. I think it was useful to me because I find marketing to be interesting, in the future, if i decide to take a marketing class, the website and professional association can be useful.

The second professional association I found to be interesting and interrelated to my major is the A.F.A (American Finance Association.) I found this association to be really interesting because I always thought I would major in finance. Some of the things I was able to learn through the website was that the A.F.A is an academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics. I also learned that the A.F.A's purpose was to improve public understanding of financial problems, to provide for the exchange of financial ideas through the distribution of a periodical and other media, and to encourage the study of finance in colleges and universities. I think that some of these purposes are very important, for example, to encourage the study of finance in colleges and universities is important in order for newer generations to become a part of professionals that are related to finance. I guess that this website and association would be useful to me because it could probably inspire or encourage me take up finance as a major in a 4 year college.

Professional Association website links:
http://www.afajof.org/default.asp
http://www.iaaglobal.org/#home