Should I choose Arizona State or Fordham for a marketing career?

Fordham is the sharper pick for a marketing career if your priority is internships and networking during college. Its biggest advantage is location: being in New York City puts you much closer to advertising agencies, media companies, fashion and retail brands, finance firms, and corporate marketing offices where students can intern during the school year.

The internship setup is the clearest difference. At Fordham, it is much more realistic to build a resume with part-time internships during fall and spring because major employers are nearby. For marketing, that matters because experience in brand strategy, social media, market research, digital content, or client-facing work often carries more weight than classroom reputation alone.

The second differentiator is the professional ecosystem around the school. Fordham students can tap into guest speakers, employer events, and alumni working in industries tightly connected to marketing, especially advertising, media, luxury, communications, and consumer brands. That kind of access can make networking feel more immediate and less theoretical.

Arizona State still has real strengths. ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business is well regarded, the school has strong resources because of its size, and Phoenix offers growing business opportunities. If you are entrepreneurial, interested in digital marketing, or want a large-campus environment with lots of student organizations and recruiting activity, ASU can absolutely lead to a successful marketing career.

What tips this toward Fordham is that marketing is so relationship-driven, and Fordham’s New York setting gives you a more direct runway into internships and connections while you are still an undergrad. If cost is similar, that advantage is hard to ignore.