Savage Scholar Program is funded by Savage Services in Salt Lake City, Utah, enabling highly motivated students who have a passion for global supply chain careers to pursue their goals through consulting, training, and real world projects. Every MBA student can apply for the program during the fall semester, and a group of candidates are selected by Marriott School Global Supply Chain faculty. The admission criteria include data analysis skills, pre-MBA professional background, international experience, and leadership qualities. Savage Scholar is a student lead program with a faculty member as the advisor.
Savage Scholar program consists of three components:
(1) Weekly supply chain consulting training
(2) Hand-on experience with real world projects
(3) International field study trip
Weekly Supply Chain Consulting Training
During the winter semester, all the students have been given training by consulting professionals from Deloitte and PwC. The program advisor also provides a series of training on inventory management, operations and logistics management, and presentation skills. Through group discussions everyone has the opportunity to learn different skills from the guest instructors and the other students. This level of intensive trainings equips the students with the expertise to work on a variety of challenging projects.
Hand-on Experience with Real World Projects
As well as an academic group, Savage Scholar program is also a consulting association which offers supply chain consulting services. Under the direction of the faculty advisor, students work on a wide range of consulting projects from Fortune 500 businesses such as Cummins, Union Pacific, and Walmart, or other Utah local companies. The projects allow students to not only immediately apply the knowledge acquired from the MBA core classes but also increase their understanding in supply chain management through hands-on experience.
The interaction also creates a win-win situation because the corporates can receive high quality consulting services and the Savage Scholars get access to working on real business projects outside of the classroom.
International Field Study Trip
Globalization is a critical element in Savage Scholar program. To equip students with a global vision in business they participate in an international field study trip, which occurs right after the end of the winter semester.
The location of the trip depends on the company sponsoring the project that year. Exposed to business in foreign cultures, students can experience the engagement to a global company and discover the most universal principles in running an international business. Moreover, all the Savage Scholars find the international trip highly inspiring in their summer internships following the trip. They can contribute to the internship project from a global stand point and thus have a great success during the summer.
Savage Scholar program is a challenging but rewarding journey for all the members. The Savage family’s generosity has not only given students the opportunities for growth but also opened the doors for future career options. Savage Scholar program is one of the top highlights in these students’ MBA life as well as a life-long honor. Through the Savage Scholar program, students can develop close friendships and teamwork characteristics with the other students in the program. Over time, recruiting process has become extremely competitive and the reputation among companies has been built up. In the near future, Savage Scholar Program will for sure become the home to highly qualified business consulting professionals.