°®¶¹´«Ã½ÊÓƵ

05/24/2016 4:00 PM

By Lindsay Anderson ‘04

A team of six senior students spent their final semester creating a strategic plan for the .

The team — (MIS) major Cole Aronson ’16 of Rosemount, Minnesota; major Matthew Basil ’16 of Racine, Wisconsin; major Max Friedman of St. Louis; business management and administration major Travis Kelso ’16 of Galesburg, Illinois; major Brent Murphy ’16 of Lemont, Illinois; and major Marshall Trent ’16 of Peoria – researched local residents to learn what cinema options would best benefit the community. The study researched movie types, showings, prices and concessions.

“Seeing the theatre’s financials, who works there, their attendance, and how we could actually help them was a lot more fun than having a hypothetical situation in class,” Friedman said. “Knowing that we were not just doing it for a grade, but to also see a company excel, was one of the highlights for me.”

“Talking to the clients after our presentation and seeing their gratitude and how much this project will help them was a highlight for me,” Aronson said. “I have interviewed with various consulting firms, and they were all impressed with my real-life consulting experience through this senior capstone.”

In the last five years, Foster College of Business students have completed 35,259 hours of consulting experience in the College’s senior capstone class and have completed 3,924 documented experiential learning events.

“This course is a true differentiator for all students graduating from the Foster College of Business,” Caterpillar Inc. Professor of Strategic Management, Dr. , said. “It’s also a great experience for students to apply real-life classroom knowledge to a business issue and beneficial to the client, gaining strategies to help grow their business profitably.”