The NUS MBA Consulting Club

Shipra Gupta, President - NUS MBA Consulting Club, writes for the IIM Calcutta Magazine, "The Joka-Strategist" ...

People pursue MBA programs for a variety of reasons: switching industries, climbing the next rung of the corporate ladder, taking a study break to go back to the joys of being a student and taking a sabbatical to figure out the next step in life; constitute a few of those. A large proportion of these categories of students explore consulting as a prospect career option. Add to this a large number of students who harbor an informed preference towards this field, and the result is almost half of every new batch that wants to consider a career in consulting. It is this very half that the NUS MBA Consulting Club aims to assist in their journey towards the career of their preference.

Being an entirely student-run body, our mission is to help our members get an insightful picture of the Consulting industry and make informed career related decisions. Working towards this purpose we organize various events of differing scale and magnitude throughout the year. These events can be classified as different points on a 3-dimensional plane; with the actual dimensions being: scale (small vs. large), subject (industry insights vs. career related) and speaker (internal vs. external).

i-Speak is an example of a series of small scale internal speaker events focusing on industry insights provided by students from within the batch who have extensive prior experience in the Consulting industry. These sessions provide an informal platform for students to share their concerns, experiences and opinions about the prevalent work culture, the specific processes, training programs, projects and skill sets.

Diametrically opposite to i-Speak is Consultant Unplugged. An annual NUS MBA Flagship event, it takes the form of a panel discussion between elite members of the Consulting industry in Singapore; with the actual subject of the discussion ranging widely from the panelists’ experiences to insights about the trends in the industry etc.

Between these 2 ends of the spectrum lie a whole plethora of events including talks by alumni on a wide range of topics; resume reviews, mock interview and case analysis sessions; periodic blog and website updates, career interest groups and fun consultant-meets to name a few. All these events serve specific purposes; so while resume reviews & mock interview sessions are intended to better equip our members in their internship/job hunts; fun-consultant meets are just an opportunity for members to let their hair down and de-stress.

As a club we try to attain the optimum balance between the various events, so that at the end of the program, our members feel better informed and equipped to build a career in the consulting industry, while ensuring that they relish the experience of having been a part of the program and a member of the club

-Shipra Gupta
President- NUS MBA Consulting Club
Class of 2010
[ Click Here for the Original Joka-Strategist Edition]