How employers rank college grads:
Category Mean Rating% giving high (8-10)
rating
% giving low (1-5)
rating
Teamwork 7.0 39% 17%
Ethical judgment 6.9 38% 19%
Intercultural skills 6.9 38% 19%
Social responsibility 6.7 35% 21%
Quantitative reasoning 6.7 32% 23%
Oral communication 6.6 30% 23%
Self-knowledge 6.5 28% 26%
Adaptability 6.3 24% 30%
Critical thinking 6.3 22% 31%
Writing 6.1 26% 37%
Self-direction 5.9 23% 42%
Global knowledge 5.7 18% 46%2
What employers want
• Only 13 percent said transcripts were very useful with another 16 percent saying fairly useful, compared to 33 percent who said “not useful.”
• What the employers appear to want are intensive, personally evaluated projects, not more testing. Only 7 percent said it would be “very effective” to have the results of multiple choice tests of general knowledge, and there was little interest in tools that would compare on colleges’ graduates to another on critical thinking tests.
• In contrast, 46 percent said it would be very effective and 70 percent said it would be very or fairly effective to have students complete an advanced project as seniors, demonstrating knowledge in the major and in problem-solving, writing, and analytic skills. And 69 percent said it would be very effective and 83 percent said it would be very or fairly effective to see an evaluation of a supervised internship where students apply college learning in a “real-world setting.”
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Underserved Businesses
IndustryMentors
Faculty
StudentTeams
Elements of the BEDC Model
Over 300 businesses served with over $10 million in beneficial value and hundreds of jobs created and retained
Faculty of five higher education institutions involved in curriculum development Over 700 student
consultants in four educational institutions have had highly successful consulting experiences
Hundreds of Rotary Club, consulting firms, alumni, and major enterprise professionals have assisted
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Underserved Business
IndustryMentor
Faculty
StudentTeam
BEDCSmall Business Administration
City, County and StateGovernments
Large Enterprises
Extended technical assistance Create emerging business cluster Connect to large enterprise value chain Direct input to BEDC advocacy Increase business survival rate Economic development for the region
The BEDC Model – Benefits to Business
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The BEDC Model – Benefits to Students
Underserved Business
IndustryMentor
Faculty
StudentTeam
Real business experience Mentorship
Advanced CurriculumComplex Problem Solving
Project ManagementMulticultural Context
Teamwork Relate-create-donate best practices Real and complex learning experience Student voluntarily commit 2 to 3 times as many hours to
work Multicultural context High-stakes teaming Performance visibility
Leadership Development
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The BEDC Model – Benefits to Mentors
Underserved Business
IndustryMentor
Faculty
StudentTeam
Meaningful Mentorship Social Responsibility
Create Diverse Supplier Pool
Economic DevelopmentReach Multicultural Markets
Minimal administrative overhead Meaningful contribution tracked with business
metrics Social venture capital and social responsibility Enterprise value chain
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The BEDC Model – Benefits to Faculty
Underserved Business
IndustryMentor
Faculty
StudentTeam
Hands-on learning with real business Direct feedback on student readiness
Advanced curriculumEmerging businessesMulticultural markets
Alignment with other educational
institutions
Link to business community
Deeper relationship with students
Currency and relevancy Deeper trust and deeper learning High visibility
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Student Consultant Expectations
• 50 to 100 hours of work outside of class• Professionalism in dealing with team members,
businesses and mentors• Deliverables must be of the highest quality and
completed on time• Work must be of beneficial value to the business
as judged by practicing professionals
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Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Prepare for Kick-off Meeting
Assign teams
Team forming
Review and execute consulting contract
Interview and research business
Draft, revise and execute team contact
Draft and revise project management plan
Start secondary research
Draft and revise business case statement
Analyze and organize secondary research
Plan, draft and test primary research
Conduct primary research
Analyze and organize primary research
Draft and revise preliminary recommendations
Draft final report
Draft, revise, rehearse presentation
Revise final report
DUE
Consulting Contract
Team Contract
Project Manage-ment Plan
Business Case Statement including SWOT analysis
Primary Research Instrument
Prelimin-ary Recom-mend-ations
Draft report
Final Present-ation
Final Report
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DeliverablesWeek 2 Executed Consulting Contract
Week 3 Team Contract
Week 4 Project Management Plan
Week 5 Business Case Statement and SWOT Analysis
Week 6 Primary Research Instrument
Week 8 Preliminary Recommendations
Week 9 Draft Report
Week 10 Final Presentation
Week 11 Final Report
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Assignments
• Read Preface
• Read Module 3 on Teaming and Project Management
• Compile resume and apply for a business consulting project