Extracurricular student-run consulting projects: Experiential learning, benefits and challenges at Axis Consulting

Abstract

As a form of experiential learning, consulting projects allow students to practice working with clients and develop problem-solving, critical thinking and communications skills. However, most accounts of the practices, benefits and challenges of running consulting projects are faculty-led and curricular in nature, with faculty selecting the clients and projects, and supporting student learning during the projects. Complementing this prior work, this paper reviews the practices and experiences of Axis Consulting, a student organization at Simon Fraser University in Canada that organizes extracurricular consulting projects for its members. The research is informed by the experiences of two student leaders and uses three years of data from member and client surveys. We explain how Axis Consulting creates extracurricular consulting projects for its student members, discuss the benefits and challenges of extracurricular consulting projects, and compare the similarities and differences between Axis Consulting and curricular faculty-led student consulting projects. Our work highlights the importance of student autonomy for learning and explains how this extracurricular student organization is able to deliver benefits to its members, clients and institution without the involvement of faculty.