In the competitions, students work on a “live case”: a situation facing a company dealing with real-time strategic and/or operating challenges and opportunities. For the in-house competitions, students apply for one of 20-30 slots in the competition. A team of faculty selects the top students from the applicant pool, who then form 4-6 teams of five students each.
Each year there are four competitions.
- Undergraduate competitions are scheduled in both the fall and spring semesters.
- The Graduate competition is held during the fall
- The Intercollegiate competition is held each spring.
Benefits for Students
For students, the case competitions offer a unique and personally challenging opportunity to take on a real business challenge in a stressful setting.
Key takeaways
- a terrific learning experience and challenge
- an excellent networking opportunity
- a “separate you from the crowd” resume entry
- a financial award for each member of the winning team
- the winning team members’ names are engraved on a perpetual plaque housed outside of the Undergraduate Advising Office (BSN 2102).
- Oftentimes too, individual students receive job or internship offers from the subject company as a result of this experience.
Benefits for Companies
For companies, the competitions bring a fresh outsider's perspective, and also represent an opportunity to observe and potentially recruit some of the best business students in Florida.
Two ways to participate
- Faculty at the USF College of Business will prepare a “generic” case study on the company. The students’ job in this scenario is to identify the most important issue(s) facing the organization.
- Company executive(s) present the specifics of their case to the students at the start of the competition. This allows subject companies to have the student teams focus on any particular strategic or operating issue they desire. This option also allows company representatives an opportunity to interact with the student teams and ensure that the teams focus on the most desirable issue(s) raised in the case.
