Real-World, Hands-On Learning

The Multidisciplinary Action Projects course (UMAP) places students with organizations throughout the world to address pressing organizational challenges. Students work in teams with guidance from faculty advisors to develop actionable and valuable recommendations for sponsors.

For students, UMAP provides an opportunity to augment and integrate knowledge of fundamental business concepts and tools learned in classroom settings. UMAP also offers opportunities to develop and test critical thinking and leadership skills via practical experience with real business challenges.

For sponsoring organizations, UMAP offers access to a high-caliber team of 4-6 students, the latest business concepts and tools, an external viewpoint, and rapid turnaround. The ultimate deliverable to the sponsor from a UMAP project is a set of actionable, data-driven recommendations.

Addressing a Wide Range of Business Issues

UMAP projects address a wide range of business issues – from identifying new processes and improving existing operations to launching new products and targeting new growth opportunities. Sponsors may come from many different industries – from consumer products to financial services to healthcare to real estate to telecom. Sponsoring organizations may be large corporations, small entrepreneurial start-ups, or NGO’s. In one recent project, a team of six student consultants assessed considerations related to workforce diversity in 10 cities across Asia, Europe and South America.

more about the diversity project

While each UMAP project is different in context, all have essential features in common. All confront students with a real business challenge of significant importance and no existing solution. All require applying concepts and tools from multiple disciplines. All require dynamic sense making, fact-based decisions, and high-performance teamwork. All unfold in unpredictable ways. All conclude with teams presenting actionable recommendations to project sponsors and faculty advisors.