Students Gain Valuable Experience
Hear What They Have To Say...

"My MBA consulting project put me on the forefront dealing with real business issues and truly brought together the skills attained in the program’s core classes taught during the first year. I felt the client seriously listened to our group's suggestions and we were able to provide a new perspective that added value to our learning and their business progress. The trust and confidence that the client had in our skills further reinforced my confidence in the value of a Smith education."

-Boris Lyubormisky, MBA 2002 (INS)

“The Smith consulting project challenges second year MBAs in many ways. Initially, teams gain a hard lesson in human dynamics. The random selection of team members coupled with the high profile nature of the consulting engagement really tests one’s interpersonal communication, teamwork delegation and project management skills. Teams are allowed a forum to test creative ideas through their recommendations to business leaders. Given a tight timeline and a real world problem to solve, teams can push their creative insight to combine recommendations based cross-functional skills. Overall, the consulting project is an excellent learning tool that allows MBAs to create, package and display their talent in a tangible deliverable that makes a difference”

- George S. Robinson, MBA 2002 (Sallie Mae)

"My consulting engagement this year was one of the most valuable experiences of my Smith experience. After the intense first year of the program, I found myself with an array of functional business skills, and a firm understanding of how they interact. I was ready to test those skills with a real-time business problem. The consulting engagement gave me the chance to work with an exceptional team under the guidance of an advisor who was an expert in the field. At the close of the project, our client was highly satisfied with our analysis and incorporated our recommendations into their business plans. It was rewarding to be a part of a team that made such a significant contribution.”

- Cathy Morris, MBA 2002 (World Bank)

"The MBA Consulting Program was one of the best experiences of my MBA program. My consulting project allowed me to work with my fellow classmates as well as interact with a respectable not-for-profit client in Washington, DC. It was exciting to see that our results were used as the foundation for implementing web hosting. In addition, I enjoyed working together as a team, while using each other’s background and coursework applications to develop useful recommendations for our client. "

- Connie Chang, MBA 2002 (NPR)

"Participating in the Smith Consulting Program was one of the best experiences of my MBA program. Not only did I have the opportunity to work with a fabulous local client, but I also had the pleasure of working with one of the Smith School's most highly-regarded professors. The consulting experience I gained through the MBA Consulting Program was invaluable to my job search, and has made me more marketable to potential employers."

-Tammy Deane, MBA 2001 (Sunburst Hospitality Corporation)

"Having worked as a technology and management consultant for a number of years prior to returning for my MBA at Maryland, I was impressed by the quality of the project for which I was assigned. All aspects of a traditional consulting engagement were required by all members of the team from client management and expectation setting, gaining subject matter expertise in a short timeframe, synthesizing data into meaningful conclusions, and transforming the analysis into a set of actionable next steps. All things said, the MBA Consulting experience not only allowed my team to apply knowledge gained in the classroom, it provided each of us with the necessary experience to confidently approach and manage projects of our own in the real world."

- Michael Borek, MBA 2001 (Sun Microsystems)

"The MBA Consulting project was one of the best experiences of my MBA program. Working as part of a multi-cultural team, we drew from our substantial collective past experience to create a solution which we thought would be of immediate value to the client. What I most enjoyed was how we worked together as a team, utilizing each other's strengths, to develop an actionable solution that was both relevant and useful to our client.

- Rajesh Rai, MBA 2001 (Avaya)

“The MBA Consulting Program provided me with a wonderful opportunity to apply my coursework in a real-world business setting and to gain valuable consulting experience that has allowed me to further my own consulting career. In addition, I enjoyed the chance to interview and to learn from more than 30 local business and political leaders.”

- Alison Otis, MBA 2001 (Office of Electronic Commerce)