Tauber Institute team projects are unlike traditional internships or internships offered by other graduate programs. Designed specifically for Tauber students, these projects focus on substantive operations challenges that require both business and engineering expertise.
A typical team consists of three Tauber students, with at least one business student and one engineering student on each team.
To test and demonstrate your skills, you need real responsibility and the opportunity to succeed. Rather than simply maintaining the status quo, you’ll work at the intersection of business and engineering to help sponsoring companies become faster, smarter, and more efficient in today’s competitive landscape.
Tauber’s industry partners work closely with the Tauber Institute to develop high-impact projects that challenge you to solve real-world problems and demonstrate your ability to drive results in a team environment.
Upon project completion, all teams compete in the annual Spotlight! Team Project Showcase Scholarship Competition, where teams present their project results to corporate representatives, students, alumni, and faculty.
Senior industry executives serve as judges and evaluate projects based on scope, implementation, impact, and presentation quality. Winning teams share approximately $40,000 in scholarship prizes.
View Past Spotlight! Winners
Note: Some sponsoring companies restrict team projects to domestic students.
Our industry sponsors have a late-November deadline to submit their project proposals to our team for review. Once approved, a shortlist of companies with a brief project description will be shared with our students. The project list is typically shared just before the winter break in mid-December.
Students will have the opportunity to learn about all available team projects and will narrow down a shortlist of the projects they have the greatest interest in. Once narrowed down, students can bid on interview slots to meet with the companies and explore fit. Companies are also simultaneously rating their top-ranking students. Once interviews are complete, our team utilizes an internal algorithm to finalize project assignments. While not guaranteed, most students tend to get paired with their first or second project choices.
A Tauber Institute team project is a substantive, paid, multidisciplinary “consulting-like” experience for all Tauber students (subject to the student meeting the expectations and professional standards of the Institute and the team project employer). The Tauber Institute diligently works with sponsoring companies to ensure that all projects have both business and engineering components, are strategically relevant to the company, have defined deliverables and are backed by high-level executives. These aspects, coupled with a 2-3 person Tauber student team and supported by two academic advisors, lead to tangible results – both for the company and for a student’s resume.
Some students may receive return job offers from their sponsor companies. It ultimately comes down to each company’s hiring needs in a given year and the fit and interest of the student(s) assigned to the project.
