What are real-life student consulting projects?

Objectives

• for students to consolidate the learning content in an interdisciplinary way and on a broad methodological basis 
• to support businesses and public institutions with valuable, substantial and practically-oriented solutions 
• to combine the teaching and research of the OST with businesses and public institutions for the purpose of knowledge transfer 
• to enrich the labour market with practice-oriented, successful future leaders.

The real-life student consulting projects must be:

• scientifically sound
• methodologically substantiated
• implementable directly in practice
• created together with the client in a collaborative and motivated manner

The WTT is responsible for the acquisition of all real-life student consulting projects in the Business School. It is therefore the main point of contact for anyone interested in real-life student consulting projects.

The WTT meets the interested parties at their premises and with no obligation, to discuss and assess the project options. The WTT then works together with them to develop structured plans for the assignment which meet all of the requirements and include aspects such as clearly defined project objectives. Once both sides are in agreement, mutually binding contracts are concluded for the joint implementation of the project.

All real-life student consulting project programmes are an integral part of the OST Bachelor’s programme curriculum and are launched each semester at all of the different levels. The following submission deadlines and implementation dates are therefore fixed.

The real-life student consulting project programmes are available to all businesses and institutions in Switzerland and abroad, regardless of their size or which sector they operate in. The only conditions are:

• The assignment must be based on real needs
• the implementation phase must be actively supported by the client, and be organised and supervised by the WTT.

Benefit from outstanding value while also contributing towards the practice-oriented training of successful future leaders.

The projects are conducted in the same way as in-house projects or ones with external consultants. The only difference is: Lecturers support the student teams and accompany them with regular coaching. The organisation and execution of a project is set out in the contractually-binding «Real-life student consulting projects handbook». Confidentiality is ensured through technological security measures as well in the contractual agreement. The teams work on the project at the OST campus or directly in the market. The students only spend time on the client’s premises to participate in meetings and gain insights into the client’s operations. It is in the WTT’s interest that the student teams are motivated and perform at a high level. When assigning projects to the teams, it therefore takes care to ensure that the preferences of the teams correspond as closely as possible to the objectives of the project topics and the client.