Summer Internship: Why Consulting? Consulting at Deloitte

Why Consulting? There is no right or wrong answer to that question. Personally, I was fascinated by Consulting due to the exposure one can gain about various industries and the opportunity to impact organizations on a large scale. After repeatedly hearing how difficult it will be to work in Consulting and to work with Consultants and then experiencing it first-hand, I am happy to say that I did it. It was not a smooth sail, as you will find out as you read ahead, but it was a great learning experience.

Being passionate about Technology, I wanted to work in the Technology space in Consulting. I networked with practitioners from the top consulting firms to understand the opportunities available. After hearing a lot about the culture at Deloitte, I could see myself working at Deloitte as a Technology Consultant. I started preparing for the interview by practicing plenty of strategy, marketing, operations, and technology cases. This diverse approach played a vital role in helping me secure an internship offer from Deloitte.

Carlson Deloitte Interns at Summer Associate Conference in Dallas (left to right - Jon, Cody, Elizabeth, Dylan and Me)

Going into the internship, I wanted to experience Consulting, create value, develop relationships, and determine my fit in the firm. Spending time at Deloitte enabled me to learn the best practices in Consulting and to augment my learnings from my MBA at Carlson. I learned that managing time and expectations is the most important in Consulting. My first week at Deloitte was primarily on learning about the firm and its way of working, knowledge management, client interactions and what to expect from my internship. I was one of the few who was fortunate to land in a strategy project for a healthcare client. In general, strategy projects will be executed by small teams and everyone will have higher exposure to the project and an opportunity to significantly contribute.

As part of my project, I faced the complexities involved in Change Management. Bringing change to organizations can be very difficult, even when the benefits are clear. Although it might feel like a simple thing that all of us are aware of, it plays a significant role in a Consultant’s work life. As strong communication and messaging are essential to get a buy-in, there is a lot of time spent in ensuring that the message is clearly conveyed which boils down to spending a lot of time working on presentations in iterations and modifying them again and again. Through the summer, I was also involved in 3 additional projects beyond my internship project. In the beginning, even though it was difficult to manage time between projects and deliver as per expectations, once I started being more transparent and started conveying my workload clearly, I could create higher value in my work.

Throughout the whole internship, I was always supported by my peers and allowed to take critical decisions, participate in meetings, drive discussions and significantly contribute. I met a set of amazing practitioners from Deloitte and leaders from the client organization. This project helped me understand the way of internal workings at Deloitte and the impact we have on organizations. My team always made sure that I was learning while enjoying my work and were always ready to provide constructive feedback throughout the project which allowed me to improve and deliver better. The practitioners are highly collaborative and always ready to take ownership and responsibility and there are a lot of things I learned from each one of them.

Apart from work, the firm had many fun events planned throughout the summer. I especially loved the traveling part. My orientation was in Denver, and I traveled to Kentucky and Indiana for my projects. I flew to Dallas for an Intern event, where I visited the Texas Rangers stadium, tried my hand at baseball and watched fireworks. I visited Deloitte University and savored all the cuisines they offer from around the world.

Other experiences during Internship (Baseball, Food, and Tourism)

As a student, it was a great opportunity to intern at Deloitte this summer. I will rely on my experiences at Deloitte to validate my answer to Why Consulting. For me, consulting is limitless, be it, the industry you will work in, service area, technology, client, team, or location. These limitless possibilities drove my passion and motivated me daily. I will end with my favorite quote that I heard over the summer from an inspirational person, Chris Anderson, Consulting Managing Director at Deloitte - “In Consulting, with time, you will get comfortable with being uncomfortable”

With Deloitte Interns at Inside Deloitte Event in Chicago