Explore the best majors for a career in the automotive industry, from automotive marketing to mobility studies, and find the path that fits your goals.
The modern automotive industry is a global business worth trillions of dollars, and the people running it spend far more time on automotive marketing plans, sponsorship deals, dealership operations, and supply chains than they do on engine blocks. The fastest-growing careers in the industry aren’t only the engineering roles.
They’re also the business roles, based on understanding how vehicles are marketed, sold, serviced, and experienced by the people who buy them. Few schools have built their identity around that reality as directly as Northwood University, which calls itself America’s Automotive University for a reason and offers three distinct majors for students who want a business career designed specifically around cars, mobility, and motorsports.
Automotive Marketing and Management
For Students Who Want to Shape How Vehicles Get Sold
If there’s a signature program at Northwood, this is it. Automotive Marketing and Management exists for one clear reason: the automotive industry needs people who understand marketing, retail, and dealership operations at a level most general business graduates never reach.
For a student whose interest in cars is really an interest in brand strategy, retail experience, and dealership leadership, this is the most direct route to a career in automotive marketing.
Faculty come directly from the automotive industry, and guest speakers move through lecture halls on a near-weekly basis, which means students are learning automotive marketing strategy from people currently practicing it, not just from a textbook written a decade ago. That connection to industry runs deep enough that graduates of the program have a track record of landing jobs before they even walk at graduation, often through relationships established during internships and campus recruiting events tied directly to the major.
Automotive Aftermarket Management
The Business Behind Every Car Already on the Road
New car sales get all the attention, yet the far larger but quieter engine of the automotive economy is the aftermarket: the parts, service, distribution, and accessories businesses that keep every vehicle already on the road running. Northwood’s automotive aftermarket management program is the only degree of its kind in the country, meant specifically to prepare students to lead within it.
Students in this major don’t just study the aftermarket from a distance. They attend and work major industry events like SEMA, join student organizations like the Aftermarket Club and the Northwood University International Auto Show, and complete an intensive senior capstone project pitched directly to real industry professionals before graduation.
Automotive & Mobility Studies
For Students Drawn to EVs, Motorsports, and the Future of How People Move
Every industry eventually has to make room for what’s coming next, and Northwood created an entirely new major to do exactly that. Automotive & Mobility Studies was launched to cover the parts of the industry that didn’t exist in the same form a decade ago: electric vehicles, shared mobility, connected transportation, and motorsports as a serious global business in their own right.
It’s the major for students whose interest in the automotive world extends into where the industry is actually growing next, not just where it’s already been.
The program includes a dedicated Motorsports Management concentration, developed directly with industry professionals, that prepares students to lead race teams, manage sponsorship portfolios, activate brand partnerships, and run their operational side. Students gain hands-on experience through structured internships, industry events like the Performance Racing Industry Show, and applied coursework in sponsorship activation and event logistics, positioning graduates for roles across Formula 1, NASCAR, IndyCar, and every major segment of the motorsports world, alongside traditional OEM and dealership paths.
Choosing the Right Automotive Path
Where Your Automotive Career Begins
None of these four majors compete with each other so much as they cover different entry points into the same industry. What ties all four together is the same thing that established Northwood’s reputation in the first place: faculty who’ve worked in the industry, direct pipelines into internships and full-time roles, and a business-first approach that prepares students for the realities of a rapidly evolving industry.
Combined with internships, industry partnerships, and hands-on learning, Northwood helps students graduate ready to contribute from day one. Not just with knowledge of the automotive industry, but with the confidence and experience to succeed in it.
