CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that each team in the competition will compete against teams from their respective colleges. Each team team will compete with other teams from their respective universities.
Eight teams of Cal State Long Beach students will compete among themselves this year for a chance to network with executives at the Boeing Co.
Boeing’s Business Career Foundation Program will host the annual competition to cultivate real-world business experience in high-potential college graduates, CSULB alumnus William Masters, one of the competition’s Boeing-employed coordinators, said.
Masters said this year the program selected CSULB and Cal State Fullerton as its focus schools for the competition.
Each three to five-member team made up of students from various colleges, including the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Business and the College of Engineering, will be provided with a business case study related to the aerospace industry. The teams will be asked to devise a strategy that can resolve the problems presented in a cost-effective and efficient manner, according to Masters.
He said each team will be paired with a Boeing manager or executive who will serve as the team’s mentor and have two-and-a-half weeks to plan, analyze and research their case study before presenting it to a board of Boeing executives at CSULB. The executives will then judge the quality of each team’s pitch.
The top two teams will earn an opportunity to tour a site owned by the company as well as network with Boeing executives. Masters said the students will also be able to gain first-hand knowledge of job opportunities for recent graduates.
During the contest, each team will compete against other teams from their respective university, according to Masters.
Senior operations and supply chain management major and member of Beach Cruisers team Matt Addeman said this is his second time participating in the case study competition.
Addeman said last year’s competition, to which he and his team contributed more than 160 hours of work, helped him understand the importance of time management, teamwork and working around information constraints.
Although his team didn’t win, Addeman said the realistic nature of the simulation, in which teams must work in scenarios where important information is missing but accurate and effective decisions must still be made, gave him and his team more professionalism.
Addeman said getting involved on campus, particularly through the case study contest, was especially important in teaching him vital professional skills — including teamwork, effective leadership and creative problem-solving — that are not as easily learned in the classroom.
“The best way to grow as a professional and to build your career is to participate in team projects, and that starts here at school,” he said. “Then hopefully, you’ll develop the natural ability to contribute to team projects.”
Sign-ups for the competition have closed. The Beach Cruisers and its rival teams will start their work on Thursday and will complete their recommendations on Oct. 16. The Boeing executives will judge the teams two days later, on Oct. 18.
