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When Katie Kronk graduated with her bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she felt lost. The job market was knocked down, businesses were failing or struggling to sustain themselves, and worst of all, everything she had planned for and dreamed of didn’t seem like it would work out.
Fast forward to today, and she is now the proud owner of Ignite Digital Marketing, a marketing agency, and Charcuterie by KK, a catering business focused on arranging and delivering charcuterie boards. How did she get from being a lost undergraduate to being the owner of two businesses in a short time? The answer lies in the Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the Mississippi State’s College of Business.
“An advisor told me about the programme and let me know that it was an accelerated programme and that I could be done in just one year. I thought that it was the perfect opportunity to get more knowledge and wait out the pandemic a little bit. Little did I know just how transformative and life-changing that year would be for me,” Kronk says.
The MBA is a cohort-based programme where students work together as a team and alongside faculty members. This unique approach, fused with a thoughtfully designed curriculum, ensures that MBA students are not only well-prepared academically but also equipped with the practical skills and experience needed to excel in the workplace. These include immersive simulations that put you in executive decision-making and coordination roles, case analyses that challenge you to think critically, and interviews and interactions with organisational leaders that take learning beyond the classroom. Much of this takes place during the MBA Consulting Project, the capstone course that all MBA students have to take before completing their degree.
The MBA Consulting Project is where students are paired into teams to work on various projects for their chosen companies. Source: Mississippi State University
The MBA Consulting Project is a class where students are paired to work on projects for different companies each year. Your team starts by meeting with the client to gain a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities before building a detailed proposal, which must be approved and act as a formal agreement outlining the deliverables. Following this, you design and research to find solutions that meet the project’s goals and constraints. Finally, your team will present all findings and suggestions to the client, along with an executive-style summary for future reference.
“Our students have tackled a diverse range of consulting projects,” Assistant Professor of Management Erik Markin says. “For instance, a project with a municipality focused on identifying best practices for the rapidly growing sport of pickleball. The insights from this project influenced key investment decisions by city officials regarding the development of both indoor and outdoor pickleball facilities. In another example, a local hot sauce producer implemented several recommendations from our MBA students, addressing areas such as supply chain management, production expansion, marketing strategies, and distribution channels.”
The MBA capstone project not only trains you to grasp and solve real-world problems but also teaches you soft skills like time management, as students collect data as early as possible to delve deeper into emerging issues. “To help overcome these obstacles, I encourage students to focus on thoroughly understanding the problem from the beginning, consider their methodology early on, and seek guidance from me and other faculty experts as needed,” the assistant professor says.
The MBA Consulting Project is open to on-campus and online students. Source: Mississippi State University
For Kronk, the MBA Consulting Project was her chance to apply all her new knowledge to her enterprising ideas. “Selfishly, throughout the whole process, I was able to think about the things we were learning and apply them to my new venture: market research, pricing, cost analysis, competitor analysis, branding, planning, and so much more,” she says. “The project made me view the world and businesses differently in the best way possible.”
The MBA Consulting Project is open to online MBA students too, who work with local clients virtually. In fact, Mississippi State’s College of Business is ranked #1 in Mississippi by the Online MBA Report 2024 and among the top 80 in US News & World Report 2024, making it the best choice for anyone seeking an option that balances their career, life, and advanced study.
To enhance your learning experience, the MBA Consulting Project class is set to undergo some upgrades and changes along the way according to current business trends. “We’ve added new faculty and made administrative adjustments, including the introduction of a new Director of Outreach,” Prof. Markin says. “We’ve also established new connections with startups, local businesses, and partners at MSU, which will create incredible opportunities and further highlight MSU’s commitment to community engagement.”
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