Category Archives: Undergraduate research
Illinois Business Consulting
Why should I join Illinois Business Consulting?
As a result of the client base that IBC has established, students have a wide-range of networking opportunities that lead to summer internships and full-time employment after graduation. The professional staff provides training and development that gives members a significant advantage when competing for any internship or full-time job. IBC members are able to tell potential future employers about creating economic value, solving problems, and working on a team for a real-world client. If you are looking to expand your professional networking base, develop technical and communication skills, gain real world consulting experience, and improve your opportunities for employment, please apply online at www.ibc.illinois.edu by January 20th 2013.
What is Consulting?
Consulting is a valuable tool that organizations use in which an external organization is contacted to assist the client in improving their performance through the analysis of existing organizational issues, as well as the development of plans for improvement and growth. Those who work in the consulting industry have a wide range of backgrounds depending on the area of expertise that the company specializes in.
What is Illinois Business Consulting?
IBC is the largest student-run consultancy in the country, conducting 60-70 business consulting projects each year for established organizations of varying sizes (Fortune 500 to small businesses, both for-profit and nonprofit). Illinois Business Consulting works with real-world clients by assembling teams of 5-6 consultants, 1 project manager, and 1 senior manager from a wide-variety of backgrounds to take on a complex, challenging project that the client currently faces. Throughout the project, students have the opportunity to interact with management of the respective client, as well as communicate their findings in a final deliverable.
Who can join Illinois Business Consulting?
Since our clients have a wide-range of projects, the skill set that is needed for consulting teams is very diversified. As a result, students of all majors, undergraduate and graduate, are invited to apply.
NCSA Opportunities for undergraduates
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
supports large scale computing in various disciplines and also has in-house research areas such as health sciences, bioinformatics, astronomy, and atmospheric sciences which can benefit from large scale data analysis.
Ian Brooks, who runs the Health Sciences Group currently has a Computer Assistant hourly position available
https://secure.admin.illinois.edu/osfa/vjb/detail.aspx?type=nonfws&postid=17131
While the primary focus is computer programming and the job only requires basic data analysis and visualization, he tells me having more advanced data analytic experience would be a nice plus. So if you have the computer skills he’s looking for and you are looking for hourly work, this is an opportunity worth considering.
He also tells me that there would be opportunities for a student interested in data exploration (in the public health realm) to do that in his group. They have data from sources including medical visits, weather, school attendance, and vet/med sources and are interested in extracting useful information for public health purposes. Currently this exploratory research would be unpaid and the compensation for these analyses would be shared publication credit, but it would be a good resume builder for anyone who is interested.
You can contact Ian directly at ianb@illinois.edu about the hourly position or potential exploratory research. There may be future opportunities in his group or other groups in NCSA as well.
I also wanted to make a quick plug for the Virtual Job Board
https://secure.admin.illinois.edu/osfa/vjb/
for students who are looking for work at or near the university and who may not have been aware of the board.
Department of Statistics
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/glosemey/www/