Friday, July 17, 2009

Could I be a consultant?

I had never considered consulting to be high on my list of career options, but I must say that it's moving higher and higher as I work on my consulting project this summer. I am LOVING this project and the consulting experience overall. My team and I have spent the past few weeks really digging in, getting to know the organization.

Now, we're in the heart of our work. We're strategizing, doing lots of big thinking, figuring out how the data fits and where it should lead our recommendations ... it's exhilarating to be able to take a "big picture" look at the organization, figure out where our project fits into the whole and hopefully deliver a high-impact recommendation. It's fun to be challenged and engaged in this way.

I have finally found some time during the last few days to immerse myself in reading, thinking & analysis for this project for large chunks of time, and it has helped my process immensely. My progress during the past week feels like it has increased exponentially, perhaps due to this extra time spent as well as finally having a very clear picture of the workings of the organization. I'm excited to continue working on this project for the next 6 weeks, and I'm most excited to think about delivering a set of recommendations backed by strong data that will solve a problem and create some change!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Summer classes are iNtenSe

We are just wrapping up our last week of the first module of summer classes. Let me tell you, they took a little getting used to. Only, we didn't really have time to get used to them ...

Our summer semester is broken into two modules, with two classes during the first half and one more during the second half. Our TCP spans the entire summer. The summer courses are only 6 weeks long, meeting for three hours twice a week. INTENSE! I must say that this is not my preferred course schedule. I didn't feel like I had the time to spend delving into subject matter that I found interesting. It was always a sprint to get work done for the next class sessions. I'll be happy to get back to our regular once a week, semester-long class schedule this fall. I'm also happy to be nearly finished with our first summer module, which will allow more time to spend on my TCP project.

Our marketing project was a good way to end the first summer module! I had a great group, and our project focused on marketing the use of locally grown produce to restaurants in a local Boston neighborhood. It will be interesting to see if our organization implements any of our suggestions. That is part of the fun of MBA projects ... sometimes they have a real purpose!