Management Consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance. To do so, management consultants demonstrate the ability to gather data, formulate strategy, and present complete solutions. Specific interdisciplinary competencies that are required of management consultants include creative thinking, problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, organization and time management, curiosity, and credibility. By combining such knowledge and competencies, management consultants can frame problems in an insightful manner, develop and assess alternatives, and present recommendations in a persuasive manner.
Management consultants are asked to solve problems in a variety of different types of organizations including for-profit, not-for-profit, non-profit, and governmental agencies. This, coupled with the rapid changing nature of work, require that management consultants' approach complex problems from multiple and interdisciplinary perspectives. Given the fact that a liberal arts education fosters skill such as research, critical thinking, evidence-based problem solving, and analytical reasoning, it is no wonder that management consultants come from a variety of disciplines such as business administration, communications, computer science, economics, engineering, political science, psychology, public administration, and the natural sciences.
The Management Consulting minor is not available to students majoring in International Business, Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness, and Sustainability Management.