<ol>
<li><p>What is the difference between Operations, Management, and Strategy consulting?</p></li>
<li><p>What are the best undergrad degrees to break into consulting? Do Business students have an edge?</p></li>
<li><p>Are there any consulting firms who grant summer internships to current undergrads? (possibly summer after Freshman or Sophomore year)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>**Answering any of these questions in some form or fashion would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There really isn’t much of a difference. Consulting is a general term, and adding the modifier before it doesn’t do much (I guess you could say operations would focus on internal procedures while strategy could focus on external processes, while management is just an umbrella for it all). The basic idea is the same for all consulting firms - when a client hires you, they give you a task, and your job is to achieve it. That job could be a 5% reduction in overhead or the implementation of a payroll system… it’s very broad. </p>
<p>Some firms embrace the broadness of the industry, so the ones like McKinsey, Bain and BCG are going to be pretty excellent in every area. Smaller firms tend to specialize in one or more particular areas - for example, human resource management or warehouse optimization.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You really don’t need any particular degree. From my college, plenty of people from the business school went into consulting, but so did plenty of people from the school of arts and sciences as well as engineering. The most important quality an applicant can have is the ability to think critically and to analyze situations quickly. I don’t see any inherent edge a business degree would have over any other degree. The only reason I can think of that business students would have any kind of advantage is that they likely heard of consulting before others!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The big consulting firms offer very lucrative summer internships to rising seniors - they do this so they can offer FT jobs to interns at the end of the summer, should the interns be sufficiently impressive. It is possible but unlikely that you will get consulting internships before your junior summer, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try!</p>