What exactly do consultants do?

Although my summer hasn't been as exciting as Jennifer, Nate, and Brandon's, I've spent the last two months working with the most amazing group of people. I have a consulting internship with a small CPA/consulting firm, J. Taylor & Associates. The firm is small and I get to interact on a daily basis with most of the consulting partners, associates, and just about everyone that works for the consulting side. The people here are compassionate, bright, and hard working, and have invested a lot of effort in helping me polish my professional skills.

As I realized when I first got here, consulting is a rather ambiguous term that can mean a lot of things. They’ve worked with a wide range of engagement types, but they specialize in doing strategic financial analysis within the healthcare industry. I’ve worked multiple hospitals this summer, helping them decide if they should bring in additional surgeons or what fair market value level of compensation a physician group should receive. It sounds easy enough in theory, but actually applying numbers and values to subjective decisions in search of the “right” answer is a complicated task. My coworkers are very intelligent and good at what they do, and keeping up with them every day has certainly pushed me. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a more interesting and challenging internship. The only bad part has been waking up every morning for work instead of sleeping in!

Hope everyone’s having a safe, wonderful summer. Only one month left!