Using professional consultants to mentor CIS students on a simulated consulting project

Abstract

Students who graduate from the Computer Information Systems major at James Madison University tend to be hired by consulting firms. In support of this, our program has developed an IT Consulting class. This class is team taught by members of the consulting firms that hire our students and a faculty member. The consulting firms also serve as mentors to the students in the class as student teams respond to a simulated Request for Proposal. This paper describes our class and the mentoring role taken by the consultants. We describe outcomes of this mentoring relationship from both the consultants' and the students' perspective.

The enablers of early career outcomes of information technology professionals

“…Few studies from the skills development literature (Aasheim, Li, & Williams, 2009;Dillon & Lending, 2014;Trauth, Farwell, & Lee, 1993) and turnaway research offer important insights into career interventions, initial employment and IT career persistence. Dillon and Lending (2014) found that 70% of college IT students who are mentored by seasoned IT professionals find employment at graduation. Trauth et al (1993) argue that mentorship and internship programs presumably bridge the IT skills gap that exists between academic training and the dynamic IT industry.…”

“…The findings from the IT skills development literature (Aasheim et al, 2009;Dillon & Lending, 2014;Trauth et al, 1993) provide evidence and reasons for the favorable outcomes of career interventions. However, the studies (e.g.…”

“…However, the studies (e.g. Dillon & Lending, 2014;Trauth et al, 1993) remain largely descriptive and the findings could suffer from self-selection or endogeneity bias.…”