Tag: Taylor Community Consulting program

Photo, above: This student team in the Venture Advising Consulting Course taught by Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship, spent 10 days in Budapest, Hungary immersed in the startup community and consulting for GPS Tuner, a leader in the field of software development for GPS navigation.

Olin creates powerful connections between businesses and our students—because we know the real-world measure of a program is how your academic experience translates into the workplace.

Of course, an internship is a time-honored way to gain experience and to demonstrate aptitude and skills.

But you’ll also find applied-learning opportunities in our classrooms, student clubs, and extracurricular activities—allowing you to explore new career options and gain substantive on-the-job experience, valuable mentors, and networking contacts.

1. The Center for Experiential Learning

Innovative learning. Real-world projects. Outcomes with impact. That’s the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL). The CEL matches highly motivated students at Olin Business School with organizations seeking strategic consulting services.

The CEL has five unique programs dedicated to innovative learning and delivering impact:

» Practicum pairs teams of talented Olin students with companies seeking smart solutions to management challenges.

» The Taylor Community Consulting teams of two to four graduate-level students provide pro bono consulting services to St. Louis nonprofits.

» The Olin/United Way Board Fellows program takes second-year MBA students from the classroom to the nonprofit boardroom to provide a unique lesson in leadership.

» CELect students consult for entrepreneurs at a tech incubator to better understand the challenges of a startup and advise on best-practice business strategies.

» Global Management Studies are student-directed courses that focus on industries, management styles, or emerging markets in a country or region outside the United States.

2. Investment Praxis

Guided by seasoned professionals, students manage $1.5 million of Olin Business School’s endowment.

3. Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation     and Entrepreneurship

Extracurricular entrepreneurship activities, such as business plan competitions, promote corporate innovation and the commercialization of new business ideas. The YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition has awarded over $600,000 in grants and in-kind services and also includes a $5,000 student cash prize.

4. Volunteering

Nonprofit organizations provide a wide variety of experiences to their volunteers. The Community Service Office serves as the major initiative of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University, supporting cocurricular service among undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

Applications for the Taylor Community Consulting Program (TCCP) are officially opening this week, so I asked Colton Calandrella about his experience with the TCCP. Colton is a junior at Olin from Colorado Springs, CO studying Economics and Strategy with a minor in Latin American Studies.

The Olin BSBA Undergraduate Program will be highlighting students throughout the semester to share their experiences both inside and outside the classroom.

Colton stumbled into an CEL* information session about the TCCP minutes before it started because it seemed like an interesting opportunity. After hearing the presenter for Catholic Charities explain the project, he knew he had to apply.

He says his experience with the TCCP has been the most rewarding part of his time at Olin. Interacting with local St. Louis organizations, administrators in Olin, mentors at Deloitte, and MBA students exposed him to what he said were valuable perspectives he had never considered before.  Takeaways from the experience included: consulting skills such as defining a problem, managing client expectations, narrowing the issue scope, and project management. He said he could not recommend the TCCP highly enough. From both a personal and a professional development perspective, he said it has been the most valuable activity he has participated in during his time at Olin.

When I asked him what his favorite part of the TCCP was, he had this to say

“My favorite part of the TCCP is the delivery of the final product to the client. Clearly communicating all the work our team had done for the project and seeing how satisfied the client is gives a profound sense of purpose and achievement. Learning about how the St. Louis community works would be a close second, since I think it is so important to get outside of the WashU bubble.”

The next Information Session for the Taylor Community Consulting Program is on Thursday, September 24 at 5:00pm in Bauer Hall 330: Active Learning Lab.

*Center for Experiential Learning

More than 60 guests joined the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL) in the Knight Center  Hall Courtyard on April 30, 2015 to celebrate another successful year for the five CEL programs. The event was held in honor of the incredible service the Olin CEL students and teams put forth for community partners at home and around the globe.

Students at the CELebration ceremony.

Twenty-eight outstanding students received recognition for their exceptional dedication, having participated in three+ CEL engagements during their time at Washington University.

Ten of these students were acknowledged for demonstrated leadership during the academic year and received a copy of How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen as a gift from CEL Director Ron King. Christensen’s book serves as a reminder to stay focused on what matters most in order to find personal and professional success in the next stage of your journey.

Learn More

The Center for Experiential Learning (CEL) is an educational center located in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. The CEL is focused on creating innovative learning opportunities that result in meaningful impact in the business and nonprofit communities. Learn more about the CEL and its programs at olin.wustl.edu/CEL.

Students eager to help local St. Louis nonprofits gathered in the Active Learning Lab on Thursday night to inaugurate the spring session of the Taylor Community Consulting Program. The program, an initiative of the Center for Experiential Learning, drew students from diverse academic backgrounds, including BSBA, MBA, engineering, and law students.

Each group of 5-6 students will work directly with a specific organization on a project over the course of the semester. Projects range from a date benchmarking project for Catholic Charities to an industry analysis for the Nonprofit Resource Center.

Mark Soczek, Director of the Taylor Program, was extremely excited to announce a record number of applicants both from non-profits and students hoping to participate in the program. Some organizations, such as City Academy, have been part of the Taylor Program before while many others, like the Human Rights Campaign, are newcomers who have been drawn by the reputation of the program. Soczek commented that he cannot wait to see the impactful deliverables that will come from the student consulting teams.