This year, the Summer Business Program has a new look! Based on feedback from students and executives, we’ve decided to raise the stakes. This summer, unlike programs in the past, our students are functioning as actual consulting teams.
Summer Business Program is a 4-week immersion into business practices. The program consists of day-long workshops that fall under 4 modules: understanding business, business skills, leadership, and entrepreneurship. These workshops are taught by Holy Cross alumni who currently work in the business world and are teaching from real life experiences.
In addition to the workshops, SBP students are partaking in a competition. In the past, 6 teams of 4 students were lead by an alum executive who provided them with a project. This project was a hypothetical (but intensive) approach to creating a business plan or solving a particular business problem.
Due to the hardwork and success of the last few programs, we have had to devise a way to make the competition more challenging. We gathered feedback from past executives and presenters and found a clear theme: the students are doing real world quality work. So, we decided to give them a real world project.
Our office (the Ciocca Office of Entrepreneuiral Studies) presented an offer to the members of the Holy Cross Entrepreneurs Group in the Boston area: Give us a project and we’ll give you 6 competing consulting teams to provide a solution/service/plan – for free!
Needless to say, we had more than one interested company, but after serious deliberation, we have partnered with Mats, Inc. to help create a marketing plan and pitch for a new venture they are introducing. In turn, Mats, Inc. will use the winning team’s plan to launch this project and our students will have gained real consulting experience.
The teams will still have an executive to act as mentor and advisor. Also, a team from Mats, Inc will be holding status meetings to check on progress. But, make no mistake, the students are running the show. The teams are competing for a cash prize, bragging rights, and the chance to add successful marketing consultant to their resumes!
We hope this is the first of many real life ventures the Summer Business Program attempts. Good luck to all and may the best team win!
As always, don’t forget to “Like” us on FACEBOOK and look for our WIB, SBP and ELW groups on LinkedIN!
Kaithlyn
Kaithlyn Kayer
Associate Director, Entrepreneurial Studies
David Chu
Director, Entrepreneurial Studies & Pre-business Advisor
