Student-led Consulting Week bridges classroom learning and industry careers
Farmer School of Business junior sparks four-day campus event connecting Miami students with top consulting industry executives and recruiters.
Student-led Consulting Week bridges classroom learning and industry careers
Farmer School of Business junior sparks four-day campus event connecting Miami students with top consulting industry executives and recruiters.
Earlier this month, Consulting Week at Miami University was a four-day event that included four panel discussions, three information sessions, a Meet the Firms event with more than a dozen companies taking part, and a case competition open to students from across campus.
And it all started with one Farmer School of Business student.
Last semester, junior Supply Chain Operations and Management student Sean Phillips had an idea to spread the word about what business consulting is and why students might want to consider a consulting career.
“I looked into the consulting scene at Miami, asking if students know what consulting is. A lot of Farmer students did know, but at the same time, they didn't really know how that would apply to them as like a career path,” he said.
Phillips pointed out that much of the work that students do for real world client projects are a form of consulting. “Even the First-Year Integrated Core Client Challenge is very similar to what an actual consulting project would look like,” he said.
“When you work for a client and they give you a complex problem that you have to solve, and you're in a team, and you communicate with the client, that is consulting,” he said.
Phillips, the chief operating officer of the Miami Business Consulting (MBC) student organization, reached out to Farmer School of Business dean Jenny Darroch and several FSB faculty to figure out how to set up an event around consulting. He also talked with executives from EY and other consulting firms to learn what they look for when hiring consultants.
From those conversations, he worked with some of the MBC members and developed the plan for Consulting Week – only a few months before the event took place. Phillips sought advice from David Shade ‘00, an FSB alum and partner at EY, which sponsors the MBC. Soon after, EY offered to sponsor the whole event.
Phillips said he reached out to numerous Farmer School and Miami alumni to ask them to take part, and many of them agreed.
“I messaged a senior partner on LinkedIn, and his first response was, ‘I'll be sure to be in Oxford on that day,’” he said. “That's your typical Miami alum. They always want to give back.”
Shade took part in one of the panels and helped judge the consulting case competition finals.
“I think this has been a phenomenal experience for both the students from a learning perspective, as well as the employers that came to it,” Shade said. “I think about career pathways and journeys that we're trying to create and tying that back to how we create more opportunities for students, and this is a great event.”
Asked if he could have done the work that Phillips had done to make this event happen when he was Phillips’ age, Shade smiled and said, “No.”
“These students have evolved so much in terms of how quickly they learn the responsibilities they want to take on and what they do earlier in their academic careers,” he said. “There were a number of first-year students in the case competition, and they've only been on campus for two months. They're jumping in with both feet and going out there and getting after it. It's really, really special.”
Now, with Consulting Week behind him, Phillips is already looking to the next one.
“One of the most rewarding parts was hearing from so many students about how impactful the experience was for them. Several recruiters also mentioned how impressed they were with the students they met throughout the week,” Phillips said. “I'm really excited to build on this momentum and continue expanding consulting opportunities and engagement across campus. I think we've established a great foundation for future events.”
