Benefits of Our First Year Rep Experience

1. Curated Consulting Mentorship Experience

2. Personal Growth and Development

3. Learning what SCC has to offer

4. Expanding and Enriching Network

5. Industry Knowledge

Aditya Sharma (BBA ‘23) and Salah Mahdi (BBA ‘23) served as SCC’s First Year Reps (FYR) for the 2019 school year. The pair learned about SCC during Club Week and demonstrated a passion for the club throughout recruitment. During their time as FYRs, Aditya and Salah supported marketing efforts, planned for the Undergraduate Consulting Conference (UCC), and worked on several other projects. Aditya later progressed into his role as a Conference Development Associate and Salah into his role as a Corporate Relations Associate. The pair have enjoyed their time with SCC and attribute a lot of their success within the club to their time as FYRs. In this article, they will recount the most impactful elements of their FYR experience and the benefits they continue to reap from it.

Curated Consulting Mentorship Experience

Entering first year can be fairly daunting; and mentorship is an essential part of many first years’ feeling of comfort in the program. As a bonus, both of us had an eager curiosity about consulting from day one, so mentorship from the SCC Executive Team was the perfect fit. Members of the executive team helped us understand the consulting recruitment process and what it takes to be successful in the industry. By identifying our strengths and weaknesses, they supported our personal development and shared opportunities with us. The SCC Executive Team is a group of driven, innovative, and hardworking individuals, and having their support and mentorship played an integral role in our transition to Schulich.

Personal Growth and Development

The FYR role is a special one. The projects that we got to explore as FYRs were unique, and allowed us to grow beyond our academic experience. Two of the many skills we developed during our time as FYRs are organization and communication. Supporting the planning process and logistical execution of SCC events provided us with experience in working with different timelines and stakeholders, replicating elements of work as a consultant. Furthermore, delivering presentations to our 2023 class about SCC events helped us work on our communication skills and better equipped us for other oral communication scenarios, both inside or outside the classroom. Overall, our time as SCC FYRs was a time full of personal development.

Industry Knowledge

SCC serves as a very unique learning opportunity. The first two years at Schulich consist of introductory courses in the areas of marketing, accounting, finance and more; it is only until later years when students can study consulting-related material. SCC counters the scarcity of knowledge among young students by educating its members and executives about the consulting industry and the types of services and organizations within it. For us, spending time with the experienced executive team introduced us to industry knowledge, allowed us to determine our areas of interest, and ultimately, set us up for success.

Learning What SCC Has to Offer

Like most successful organizations, SCC has a diverse multi-functional team. Finance & Analytics, Marketing, and Corporate Relations are just a few of the teams in SCC’s executive structure. These distinct functions work in tandem to organize events and provide SCC’s members the best experience possible. Being FYR allowed us to experience these functions firsthand, which was crucial for our progression in SCC. We were able to gauge which role was the best fit for our personal skill sets, and our growth. Based on our time as FYR’s we successfully selected the functions we wanted to join and are happily part of now.

Expanding and Enriching Network

Networking is crucial in the modern business world. Heading into first year, it’s common for students to not have an expansive professional network, let alone the skills needed to grow their network. SCC equipped us with the tools necessary to effectively broaden and enrich our networks. During our time as FYR, we were given the opportunity to connect with a plethora of professionals from various backgrounds and firms. Not only did we have the opportunity to network with professionals at events, we also had the opportunity to build connections with upper year students within SCC, and the club’s expansive alumni base. The connections we built with some of the brightest students at Schulich, through SCC, are invaluable and will continue to provide benefit for years to come. The quality of both our network and our ability to network improved drastically thanks to our time as FYRs.

If reading about Salah and Aditya’s experience as a FYR piqued your interest, be sure to follow our Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages for more updates on the FYR recruitment process. Also, be sure to attend SCC’s kick off event, Premiere, to speak with SCC executives, learn about the FYR role, and develop a foundational understanding of consulting.