Oftentimes, students accepted into the lab course have relevant prior experience, which allows for a more dynamic class environment, Hachikian said, as do guest speakers who add context around specific topics. This spring, students worked on one-off projects with two other organizations: the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness, an international alliance to promote eye health, and American Rivers, a nonprofit focused on clean water and healthy rivers.
“You can turn the courses into rich learning opportunities about the challenges of actual social impact—from a pedagogical perspective, these are really hard topics,” she said.
Full-Time Booth student Burke Sims, who also worked alongside Jefferys on the Patron Capital fund, said the experience was valuable because of how Hachikian structured the course and paired students of varying experience levels. “Professor Hachikian put together a great team with different backgrounds and our complementary skills let us learn from one another and deliver better recommendations,” said Sims.
Ultimately, the course gave him a front-row seat to an emerging industry. “The industry is young—there’s still no consensus on how to best balance market returns with social impact so it was exciting to help Patron answer this question,” says Sims, who will be working in real estate private equity after graduating in June.
For Jefferys, the course experience inspired her to consider pursuing a full-time role in the social impact investing space after she graduates from the Part-Time Booth program in June. “This lab was game-changing,” she said. “I had been involved in finance and the for-profit world, but seeing all these tools being used in the nonprofit space was quite the takeaway.”
Note: Top photo provided by the Rustandy Center, taken prior to 2020.