Each spring and fall academic semester, Kaulkin Ginsberg Company (KGC) collaborates with the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) to work with highly qualified and hardworking students in a real-world fellowship program (the Fellowship). Each semester, several UMD students, who have displayed success in their academics and want to apply their classroom knowledge to practical market research projects, are selected to participate in the Fellowship. In the past, we’ve had UMD students with an interest to move on to graduate school, and those who simply want to immediately enter the working world. In addition to their economics academic focus, some former fellows were dual mathematics, finance, or engineering majors, with others interested in government and politics or even journalism. We’ve even had the pleasure of helping international students gain a simulated real-world working experience in the U.S through the Fellowship. KGC overwhelmingly enjoys meeting new fellows, who are eager to gain new experiences and maintain a thirst for learning, each semester.

This past semester, there were 12 students selected to be part of the Fellowship. The fellows were split into groups and tasked with performing market research within several accounts receivable management (ARM) client segments, specifically the utilities, financial services, healthcare, and property management industries. KGC’s team taught and guided students, while discussing ongoing research progress and addressing fellows’ questions, in weekly classes and lectures in which fellows would learn certain real-world market research and professional skills. Our fellows collaborated with each of their teammates within their groups to develop their presentation construction, public speaking, financial statement analysis, data collection, and writing skills, among many other real-world applicable techniques. Lastly, the KGC team remains in contact with fellows, as we always enjoy receiving updates from them and learn how we can help them succeed.

Going forward, we’ll continue improving the Fellowship, working with students who maintain great work ethic and integrity. We strive to enhance the Fellowship that not only benefits our firm and UMD, but one that continues providing unique opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge and experiences to real-world market research projects.

To our spring 2018 fellows: thank you for all of your hard work and persistence throughout the semester. You improved greatly throughout the three months and we look forward to helping you succeed into the future.