Giving Compass' Take:

• This year the Yale School of Management launched a new conference that discussed the legalization and industry of marijuana. Yale hosts many conferences that gain a lot of positive feedback from students because it pairs their research and studies with application of real-world experience. 

• How do conferences provide more opportunities for college students? How can other universities adopt this model and would it be successful at schools that are not ivy league? 

•  Internships at undergraduate schools are helping to achieve the same goals as these conferences. 

Students at the Yale School of Management launched a new conference this year dedicated to a rapidly growing industry: marijuana. On February 16, a diverse mix of investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and activists filled Evans Hall for sessions on marketing, regulation, and other aspects of the legal cannabis industry.

Speakers and organizers alike agreed that a new industry is being born. “This onslaught of legalization and policy changes has led to the need for a variety of businesses,” Rehmatullah said. “Cannabis needs the same ecosystem as every other industry.”

Cannabis was one of several timely topics addressed in new student led-conferences at Yale SOM this year. As students increasingly seek to address the critical issues impacting business and society, conferences are growing at a fast rate. Five years ago, Yale SOM hosted five full-scale student-led conferences; this year, the school is home to 12.

Students say that conferences let them hone their organizational and networking skills, while diving deeply into subjects they care about passionately.

“You put into practice a lot of the things we study in classes, and you apply them to real-life issues,” Marks said. “There’s a lot of teamwork that goes into this, in both academic and professional circles, so there’s a lot of collaboration. We were lucky to share best practices with one of the other new conferences this year.”

In late April, a group of Yale SOM students will hold the new Hidden Champions Conference in collaboration with the Hidden Champions Institute at ESMT Berlin, a member school of the Global Network for Advanced Management. The event will draw lessons from the companies that have quietly established themselves as market leaders in examining how to compete with increasingly diversified business players on a global scale.

Read the full article about school conferences by Karen Guzman at Yale School of Management.