Only two of the 26 current branches worldwide of 180 Degrees Consulting are in the United States, so the founding of a Tufts branch of the worlds largest student consultancy next semester will serve as yet another landmark in the universitys growth as an elite player in the world of social innovation and consulting.
The groups general interest meeting was held on Oct. 27 in Cabot Auditorium.
Senior Christopher Yee-Paulson, who serves as co-president of 180 Degrees Consulting alongside fellow senior AJ Scaramucci, was enthusiastic about the overlap of consulting and active citizenship in the group.
There is a lot of intellectual capital at Tufts, and many students have strong interests in both social impact and consulting, Yee-Paulson told the Daily in an e-mail. This is the first type of organization that serves both needs, providing incredible synergies between these two intellectual camps.
This has been an important year for Jumbos interested in pursuing business-related careers, in particular consulting. The School of Arts and Sciences does not offer a business major or minor, besides the Entrepreneurial Leadership minor, so would-be business students often take courses in the Department of Economics.
However, many students this semester have been looking for more guidance. The hiring of finance and consulting expert Christopher Di Fronzo (E 96, EG 04) at the Career Center this fall is evidence of the desire students have to learn about these fields. The addition of a chapter of 180 Degrees Consulting follows this trend.
Since its founding at the University of Sydney in 2007 by then-economics student Nathaniel Ware, 180 Degrees Consulting has become a worldwide organization with city and university branches in locations such as Prague, Tokyo and Stockholm and now Medford and Somerville. The group has branches in 18 countries.
The new branch at Tufts will officially be launched next semester, and according to Scaramucci, who is also the founder of the Tufts branch, this will bring a lot recognition to Tufts given the consultancys reputation worldwide.
180 Degrees Consulting is now the largest pro bono student-driven consultancy in the world, he said.
180 Degrees team members offer business advice to non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) free of charge. At the University of Sydney, for example, student consultants worked with Red Cross Australia to help to cut down costs, allowing the organization to focus funding elsewhere.
Scaramucci explained that, while he has garnered experience in sales through his part-time work as a product specialist at Tesla Motors, the predominant factor that inspired him to start the Tufts branch was his study abroad experience at the University of Sydney, where he said he worked in the companys original branch.
All you do is go out and actively recruit consultants at a university campus, he said. You do some inbound marketing, they apply to be student consultants, and the individuals who get accepted then get paired into teams of five. Those teams of five get paired with a team leader, so thats six total individuals. Finally, they get paired with a non-profit organization or NGO in the local area.
Scaramuccis team of consultants in Australia, he said, worked with Food Water Shelter, an Australia-based non-profit that works in developing countries to benefit vulnerable women and children by providing functional education, social and health facilities. His team advised the organization to take advantage of the growing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) through websites such as Khan Academy, so that students in Tanzania would have access to an assortment of courses that they wouldnt otherwise have.
In short, they were spending a lot of money on teachers and volunteers and textbooks and infrastructure, rather than on computers and Wi-Fi connection, Scaramucci said. What this enables for the Tanzanian kids is that they [have] the ability to have access to the Internet.
While the club will enable student consultants to gain invaluable first-hand experience in the business world, like Scaramucci said he has already seen, 180 Degrees Consulting puts volunteerism and activism at the heart of its goals to produce positive socioeconomic change in communities near chapters.
Jasmine Slivka, founder of the first 180 Degrees branch in the United States at Indiana University, expressed her excitement about the establishment of more chapters in the country.
With an already strong presence in Australia, Europe, and Asia, we could see immense potential for 180 Degrees Consulting branches at many of the top universities in the United States, Slivka told the Daily in an email.
Slivka, who is also 180 Degrees Chief Branch Officer of North America, has been collaborating with the executive board of the Tufts chapter.
We have put together a very strong regional team to oversee the increasing demand for 180 Degrees Consulting branches and are very confident in the success of our new branches launching next semester, she said.12
