Overview
Beacon utilizes an elite-tier consultant as the primary instructor, and an intense, on-premise consulting project for an impressive brand to give students the ability to perform in consulting and helps to signal interest in consulting, all of this gained while studying abroad during a college break.
How is this page structured?
First, we talk about why Consulting is attractive as a field (if you already understand that, you can skip this section).
Second, we discuss why Beacon specifically is valuable.
why consulting?
consulting is a proven place to develop early career skills
Before we get more in-depth about why do Beacon, let’s talk about why consulting is great in general. Many people believe consulting is the best industry in which to build early career skills. Challenging work and talented peers combine to form a working environment incredibly ripe for learning and growth. Even those who may not want to pursue consulting full-time benefit immensely from consulting experience because it develops the skills that employers want most and provides a great foundation for entrepreneurial leadership. Jobs at the MBB firms (McKinsey, Bain, & BCG, the top three consulting firms in the world) are so sought-after and desired, precisely because they’re elite at developing these skills.
Below are some of the skills you’ll develop as a consultant.
Click to be directed to some of our favorite articles from Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Fortune which explain the impact of that particular skill:
Analysis
Teamwork
Intellectual Curiosity
Empathy
Adaptability
Cultural Competency
Independent Thinking
360 Degree Thinking
Why Beacon?
Beacon maximizes learning by being structured similarly to Mbb (McKinsey, Bain, BCG) consulting
At the MBB firms, and consulting broadly, entry-level consultants don’t have much experience but they have smarts & ambition. A Partner, or Project Lead, will lead analysts on a project, contributing his/her own expertise, but relying on the entry-level analysts and their skills in quickly crunching numbers, performing analyses, & building slides. Usually the Project Lead is the one who presents to the client, although entry-level analysts stand by, ready to delve deeper on a given topic. Entry-level consultants benefit by working under an extremely talented, experienced consultant and gain exposure to a diverse set of complicated business problems that challenge them daily.
At Beacon, we’ve designed a similar experience. Beacon Fellows are not expected to have industry experience, but, through their willingness to learn, are able to contribute via their hard work in data analysis, researching best practices in an industry, designing a prototype, etc. An MBB alumnus serves as Project Lead and guides the project as a whole and leads interaction with the client, as is typical in consulting, although Beacon Fellows usually have the opportunity to present their slides themselves to the client.
with beacon on their resumes, Alumni have received top consulting internship & full time offers
worked with mckinsey alumnus/Harvard MBA project lead:
“The Beacon Fellowship provides the opportunity to gain real-world consulting skills…from the Project Lead that are unrivaled. The knowledge gained from this experience has made me feel prepared to enter the world of consulting” - Victoria L., Wake Forest ‘20, Beacon ‘19