When Wharton sophomore Mindy Zhang applied to work as a consultant at Wharton’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), her goal was to have complete ownership of a project. At the SBDC, she got a lot more than she bargained for. In addition to taking ownership of several projects, she also sharpened her analytical skills, learned about client relationship management and made a lot of friends.
“My first taste of the job was working for a café in Philadelphia which wanted to drive customer traffic to the store because they were losing money,” says Zhang. That project required her to apply almost everything she had learned in her core courses to help diagnose and solve the client’s problem.
“I started out working on a cost accounting model to figure out which of their products were profitable and also looked at their inventory to see where they could save money by buying in bulk. Then I created a model to determine how much money they could save and set targets for how many customers they needed every day to turn a profit,” she says.
Zhang, who still consults part-time at the SBDC, says, “One of my favorite parts of the summer was being in an open work environment with my peers, which encouraged brainstorming. We got so much feedback from each other on our projects and sometimes when I was stuck in the numbers on my case, they would help me see an opportunity outside of the box.”
She adds that another highlight of her summer job was learning how to manage client relationships. “You have to communicate well, keep the client informed and address their concerns, which was interesting because a lot of entrepreneurs have a perspective on what the core issue is for their business and that may turn out not to be correct.”
An added bonus of the job, she says, was getting a head start on her 2nd year core classes. “Right now, I’m taking cost accounting and last summer I worked on a cost accounting model so now I’m taking a step back and learning the theoretical concepts behind it,” she says.
Zhang says that this type of experiential learning is a huge part of the Wharton undergraduate experience. “There are so many opportunities here for students to carve out their own niche within business – the SBDC is just one of them!”
