During Block 8, CC’s Consulting Club met with Career Center administration to present the final report for their time as consultants for the center. “Engaging and Retaining First and Second Year Students in the Colorado College Career Center,” a 34-page report and presentation, was the culmination of the club’s work for its first ever year-long student-led study.
From 2016 to 2022, CC was involved in the Quad Innovation Alliance, a research consulting initiative between four higher-education institutions. However, after the program ended, students were left with few alternatives to get this hands-on, problem-solving consulting experience. To fill this gap, the Consulting Club leadership team decided to create a student-led consulting project.
“The project structure was inspired by Professor Christina Rader’s Business, Organization, and Management course, where we conducted a consulting project for a client,” says Sasha Akinchina ’25, a BESoc and English Lit major, Consulting Club Co-leader, Marketing Director of the Women in Business Club, and writer for the Catalyst. We took that course as our baseline for building out this student project, which we used as inspiration for our report and evidence-collection methods.”
The Consulting Club is a place for members to practice interview skills, public speaking, and collaboration. The team for this project consisted of club members Akinchina, Emmet Shuman ’26, Abby Le ’25, Sonia Guliak ’25, Greg Phillips ’25, and Rafiul Khan ’26.
During the past summer and through Blocks 1 and 2 of this academic year, the team gathered its members and began to brainstorm its first consulting project. They started working on the Career Center study in Block 3 and continued to work over the course of the year. The team met twice a week as well as working on their own aspects of the project individually.
“Due to the extensive time frame, our club leadership had to be cognizant of the variable intensity in the Block Plan,” says Shuman, a Mathematical Economics Major & Computer Science Minor, member of Consulting Club and Coding Club, and Co-Captain of the CC Nordic Ski team. “Thankfully the project was structured to accommodate change in class difficulty, and for most of the year, the project workload was easily balanced alongside classwork. In the blocks approaching the presentation our workload intensified, but the club overcame hurdles in time management relatively easily. I believe the club has learned a lot from the experience, and we are already examining how to improve the project for next year.”
The project was a unique challenge for this group of students who have become accustomed to the pace and singular focus of the Block Plan.
“It has definitely been challenging balancing the project with the Block Plan,” says Phillips, a BESoc major, co-leader of Consulting Club, member of the CC Bike team and Mechanic at the Bike & Ski Co-op. “Setting hard deadlines throughout the course of the project worked well for us, but even with spacing out deadlines we ended up having some late nights before our deliverables.”
Even with these new difficulties, the team proved themselves fit for the challenge and gained a wealth of knowledge and experience in the process.
“I am now much more confident in approaching people and asking them questions,” says Guliak, a BESoc major and member of Consulting Club, Fashion Club, Hillel, and Ukrainian Association. “I hope to conduct more consulting projects in my upcoming years at CC, and possibly after the graduation. My teamworking skills have developed significantly, in that not only do I account for other’s opinions and feedback, but also can delegate a part of my task and trust them to perform with excellence.”
Shuman believes that this project was the perfect complement to all that he has learned at CC so far. “Completing the Consulting Club project provided an opportunity to apply my knowledge of coding, improve my writing and presentation skills, and work in a simulated professional setting,” he says. “I know the lessons from the project will continue to be beneficial throughout my entire career. Over the coming school year, I plan to apply my experience to next year’s Consulting Club project, and I hope to expand my role to aid in leading the project. Over the long term, I believe continuing to pursue similar experiences that test my strategic and analytical abilities will prove engaging and fulfilling.”
Akinchina is more than proud of her team and all they accomplished. “Leading this project was one of the most fulfilling things I have done in my time at college,” she says. “I learned so much about leadership – from leading meetings to handling unexpected challenges. I loved the work I was doing and the people I was doing it with. I know that whatever I do in my future, I want to have the same feeling of fulfillment and purpose that I experienced with my time co-leading Consulting Club and this project.”
In the end, the team thoroughly impressed their client, who looks forward to future work with the club.
“We were thrilled to support the Consulting Team’s project from both a client and educator perspective,” says Brett Woodard, Director of Career Readiness for the Career Center. “From applying evidence-based research methods to exemplifying coordinated collaboration and delivering an excellent presentation of findings, the students demonstrated several career readiness competencies including communication, critical thinking teamwork, and professional effectiveness.”
“It is hard to have that continuity on the Block Plan,” says Sarah Reinbrecht, a Career Consultant at the Career Center. “It really has been impressive to watch them coordinate such an extensive project. I’m excited to have them present their report and hear their insights.”
After their successful initial project, the team is already thinking about the next one. Plans will begin soon for picking a new client for the coming academic year.