By Steven Laird

As the consulting field has become increasingly popular among undergraduate business students, many students commonly ask themselves two important questions: how can I differentiate myself and how do I break into the consulting industry?  Are you among the many who are interested in landing that consulting job with prestigious firms such as Bain and Company, ZS Associates, Mercer, and Deloitte?  If so, the best way to get your feet wet and get one step closer to that full-time offer is to participate in a case competition.  A case competition is a competition in which contestants choose teams of three to five persons to tackle a business problem by a hosting firm.  This spring’s Strategy and Operations Case Competition was held on Saturday, April 17, and was hosted by Bruin Consulting, who gathered contestants from CAST Management Consulting, Inc.; Bain and Company; L.E.K. Consulting; Monitor; Mercer, and ZS Associates.

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By David Vayzner

Ernst & Young along with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, and other top executives of the Lehman firm were sued on April 9^th by the Retirement Housing Foundation for an accounting gimmick known as the Repo 105 which allows companies to classify borrowing activities as revenue.

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Hudson Caslte: Fortress for Fraud or Unknowing Estate?

A New York Times article released April 14 sparked huge controversy in the banking world when it accused Lehman brothers of using the firm Hudson Castle to convert its volatile assets into safer looking securities. Numerous transactions indicate that Lehman was selling its dangerous assets, such as the Mortgage backed securities that led to the financial meltdown, to Hudson or one of its vehicles and then buying debt securities back from the same companies.

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Nuclear Summit: Obama Claims, “We’ve Made Real Progress in Building a Safer World”

At the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, which took place on April 13 and 14 in Washington, D.C, President Obama participated in discussions geared toward passing reform limiting nuclear stockpiling around the world.  China, Russia, and the United States reached a breakthrough agreement to impose tougher sanctions against Iran and its nuclear objectives.  The aim of the agreement is to ensure terrorists cannot obtain nuclear devices of any kind as they would likely use them.  The United States updated its agreement with Russia made in 2000, which is intended to remove nuclear weapons from both countries’ military programs.  Other countries such as Mexico, Ukraine, and Egypt are also contributing to the task of reducing nuclear dependence through initiatives geared at eliminating highly enriched uranium.  Nuclear reactors used to generate power will be converted to use low-enriched uranium, which is more stable and not effective for producing nuclear weapons.

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