What even is Consulting?
- Eva Raye
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
What even is consulting? I have asked myself this question since I committed to IBEA, and now I can start to answer it from personal experience! Our cohort program has a management consulting focus, meaning that in each country we study abroad in, we will have some sort of consulting project to complete. Without really knowing what that meant, I had been told by my advisors that the experience is invaluable and our opportunities post-grad will be wide open, so I went with it.
The first year and a half of college, I chose to focus more on work and college ministry than I did on business. I work at the business school advising office and have attended various events hosted by the Moore School, like HR Day, but I did not officially join any of the business organizations. There are pros and cons to this because, although I did not grow in business knowledge outside my classes, I gained other valuable aviation and global missions knowledge, which I am also interested in post-grad. I have noticed that a lot of my peers are involved with professional business fraternities and clubs, such as the Gamecock Consulting Club (GCC), which seem to be great organizations to help you grow professionally and have a network of people when trying to decide where you want your future to take you. With this in mind, and to at least try, I went through recruitment for GCC in the spring of my freshman year and DSP recruitment, a business fraternity, in the fall of my sophomore year, both ending in the "I regret to inform you..." email. I learned a lot from the recruitment processes and have respect for those who either get in the first time or try one or two more times! It is interesting to me that I got rejected because my heart was like 50/50 when going through the process, so I just tell myself it was for the best.
Going into my Germany semester, I wanted to apply for a student consulting initiative abroad, since I would have so much more free time on my hands! I thought it would be nice to get more hands-on consulting experience, since that is what my program is focused on. I had a lot of doubts and nerves for my interview, but after the recruitment process with 180 Degrees Consulting (180DC), I found out that I got a position as a student consultant! So, on top of my IBEA consulting project, I would get to work for a London-based startup called CarbonTag! I was thrilled to start my consulting journey and be more in tune with the business world!
Over this semester, I have worked on consulting projects with two companies: EY and CarbonTag—the first being with for my IBEA tax class and the second with 180DC.
EY
In February and March, my cohort and I took an international tax class to prepare us for our consulting project with EY. This project was very different from the one for CarbonTag (which I’ll explain in detail later). This was because we were divided into six groups of about six across different nationalities and were given slightly different cases, which were all hypothetical. So instead of delivering our ideas and them being useful to a client, this one was more of an assessment on how well we learned the tax material, worked well in our group, and presented on the presentation day at EY’s office. This was an invaluable experience to me, as I had no previous knowledge of international taxation. This project had one phase—a final presentation—with two check-ins with the teaching assistant to check our progress along the way. The project was calculation-heavy, to provide a solution that would be the most tax-efficient. For my group’s scenario, we had a parent company located in Germany, with four subsidiary companies in the U.S., France, Singapore, and Brazil. Our company was in the tech industry and would be developing software, while also debt-financing the U.S. We had to provide a solution by establishing Research and Development (R&D) and Intellectual Property (IP), as well as have a plan to finance the U.S., all of which could be located in either one of our current entities, a new one, or multiple new ones. It took a lot of research into tax rates, tax treaties, and calculations to come to a conclusion, but in the end, we presented two options, discussed non-tax considerations, and then presented our final proposal! I learned so much about not only taxation but also myself through this project.
CarbonTag
Over the whole semester, I, along with six other students, assisted this startup company with funding and investor outreach strategies. Our project scope was to assess current investor outreach efforts, identify gaps, and explore grant/accelerator funding opportunities in phase one and develop a structured and effective approach to attract and engage investors in phase two. Coming into this project, I knew nothing about how startups are funded, so there was a learning curve trying to understand the difference between accelerators, grants, venture capital, angel funds, and more. I did lots of research and, for phase one, was put in charge of researching and prioritizing grants and accelerator programs based on strategic fit and developing a roadmap to guide funding applications. After about 30 hours of research (no joke), I had a functional Excel sheet with prioritized programs and a roadmap with a checklist and a few slides to present to our client. Starting from barely knowing anything about funding to being able to present to our client was so rewarding—especially seeing his face light up with excitement about how useful our work was to him and the company! Phase two was slightly different, as I was tasked with benchmarking, refining, and finalizing key investor materials, including the Investment Memo and Executive Summary, to ensure clarity and alignment with investor expectations. This process was just as rewarding, as our client was previously only using a pitch deck when communicating with investors. With our Investment Memo and Executive Summary deliverable and a targeted investor outreach strategy from our step-by-step playbook, our client was more equipped for his funding round! I learned SO MUCH from this project and am so grateful for the opportunity. To make it even better, I was placed with one of the people in my cohort, which was so special—to get to learn and grow our consulting skills together!
Consulting isn’t as confusing to explain as I originally thought. It’s all about giving expert advice to other professionals across a variety of fields to help solve problems and make better decisions! I am thrilled for the future and having the chance to consult across three more continents!
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