Member Spotlight — Consultant: Mica Shatil
Meet Mica Shatil:
Mica is currently a first year Computer Science & Business Administration (CS/BBA) student at the University of Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier University, and he has been with 180 Degrees Consulting for two terms. Mica initially joined 180 Degrees Consulting because he enjoys thinking analytically to solve real problems that benefit not only businesses, but communities as well. In his spare time, he enjoys playing hockey and going on canoe trips — he finds nothing more relaxing than spending time in Algonquin or Killarney. In addition, he has also become interested in gaming throughout the pandemic.
In this interview spotlight, we asked Mica about his experience as a Consultant and how his 180 Degrees Consulting journey has been so far.
As a Consultant at 180 Degrees Consulting Waterloo, what are some of your responsibilities?
My responsibilities include working with my team to brainstorm, research, and present solutions for our client. A lot of my work involves coming up with ideas to achieve client goals. Once I come up with an idea and discuss it with the team, I then spend some time researching it to find evidence of its benefits. Around our midterm time, we gave a presentation to the client, so I worked on slide design and script writing. For our final deliverable, we are submitting a report, so I have been working on writing about our solution and detailing specific implementation plans for each recommendation presented at the midterm.
What are some notable highlights during your time with us?
The most notable highlight is the people I’ve been able to work with. I’ve had different projects both terms with very different teams, and it is an awesome experience to get to meet other driven students looking to help out their community while gaining great experience in the consulting area. It’s been wonderful to get to work with people coming from different backgrounds and see the ways everyone approaches a problem. It’s been a huge learning experience of teamwork and leadership. Another great part of being a consultant at 180DC is presenting an original idea to the client and seeing their positive reactions and excitement to try it out!
What do you think are the most important skills for success in your role?
The most important things for this role are an open mindset, analytical thinking, and research skills. It is important to approach the client’s problems with an open mind to come up with unique and strong solutions. If you go in with a one track thought, you could miss out on a great idea. Similarly, you must analyze the client’s situation to identify root causes of issues and externalities to solutions. It is important to understand the full situation of the client and be able to identify the entire impact of a solution. Finally, effective research is critical to the role, as we base our recommendations on credible research.
What are some skills you were able to improve upon since joining?
I have improved my research skills greatly since starting with 180DC! Having real implications to my work has been a great motivator to make sure what I’m working on is sound and will yield the desired benefits. I’ve also been able to develop my collaboration skills through working with diverse teams from varying backgrounds. It’s been really interesting to see how different people approach problems and I have been able to draw on some of their approaches to improve my own. Finally, my presentation skills have also improved with 180DC through working on a styles of presentations that are different from what I make for school - and I have been using scripts more often. I’m looking forward to continuing to develop my skill set in the future with 180DC!
What advice would you have for those who are looking to join 180 Degrees Consulting Waterloo in the future?
My advice would be to come in with an open mind and willingness to learn. 180DC is a great place to develop skills in an impactful way. To really get the most out of your experience, you have to be willing to learn and be open to other ideas that may differ from yours. There is so much to learn from collaborating with others who think differently from you, and to gain these insights you have to be able to look beyond your own approach and objectively see where the benefits lie in other consultant’s ideas. I’d also tell them to have fun and be ready to work hard!
180 Degrees Consulting Waterloo is a branch of one of the largest university-based consultancy organizations in the world. We offer affordable consulting services to not-for-profit organizations and social enterprises. The Waterloo branch has consultants from University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.
For more information, check out our website here.
