Academics & Student Experience
Choose your pathway: Private Equity or Venture Capital
Strengthen your skill set with our curriculum and pursue a PE/VC career with confidence.
Education is a pillar of the Heizer Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital. We prepare students for careers in private equity, venture capital and related fields by giving you the hard and soft skills required to create businesses, expand employment and build value in an evolving business landscape. To do this, our teaching methods go well beyond classroom learning and extend to cover the three most important elements for developing a career in private equity or venture capital.
- Experiential: Private equity and venture capital are often described as learning through an apprenticeship model. The fundamentals must be built in the classroom but these skills need to be matched with experience working within a venture capital or private equity firm, or one of their portfolio companies.
- Network: Developing a large, relevant network is important so you can leverage strategic connections to source deals, understand trends, and identify customers and resources for portfolio companies.
- Leadership: To truly thrive in these industries, you need great people skills, general management expertise and the ability to lead a team.
Kellogg delivers on all three of these elements. As part of our experiential learning, we offer labs in venture capital and private equity, interactive projects with private equity portfolio companies, a San Francisco Winter Immersion Program where students intern at PE/VC firms over the winter quarter, and summer internships at venture capital firms and portfolio companies of venture capital and private equity firms. We also have one of the largest networks of alumni and partners in this space and are well known for our deep commitment to fostering collaboration and leadership.
Although there are important similarities between venture capital and private equity, Kellogg distinguishes between the two with a unique pathway for each industry. The private equity and venture capital pathway
Explore the venture capital and private equity pathway
As a student, you can also access subscription databases and other resources through the Career Management Center Library research guides for Private Equity and Venture Capital.
Go to the CMC Library Resources to access the Private Equity Research Guide and Venture Capital Research Guide(password protected)
Finally, there are many ways to gain industry experience through labs, treks, competitions and conferences. We have more than 80 student clubs that sponsor conferences, seminars, competitions, corporate projects and service opportunities, and Heizer and its partners support a variety of networking events for our students’ education in PE/VC leadership.
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In Private Equity Lab, students are exposed to the day-to-day working life of a private equity fund and assist with deal selection, due diligence, fundraising, industry research and/or portfolio company management.
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As part of Venture Lab, you will engage in market research, due diligence, assisting with fundraising documents and sourcing deal flow at venture funds and incubators.
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The San Francisco Immersion Program is a subset of Venture Lab, but this program involves an internship and classes based in San Francisco during Winter Quarter.
Learn more about the SF Immersion Program -
Each year a select set of Kellogg students visit venture capital or private equity firms in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and other cities.
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Investment challenge competitions give students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in private equity and venture capital and receive valuable feedback from industry experts.
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2025 STIPEND FUNDING APPLICATION
Would you like to work on the senior team of a private equity portfolio company? Does the idea of joining a scaling tech company sound appealing? Are you interested in owning and running your own mid-sized business?The Heizer Center Growth-Stage Summer Internship Program is an opportunity for MBA students across a spectrum of career paths to make meaningful contributions to growth-stage companies in a variety of industries. It will be of special interest to students who wish to:
- Recruit for "PE Ops" programs or other hands-on roles in PE portfolio companies
- Join scaling venture-backed technology businesses
- Raise a search fund to acquire a company, either right after graduation or in the future
- Return to an operating role in a family-owned business
- Join a PE firm in an investing role
- Recruit with consulting firms
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The Private Equity & Venture Capital Conference brings together students, alumni and the broader private investment community to discuss key opportunities and challenges in our evolving industry. Learn from timely, informative panels, hear from leaders and experts, and connect with other professionals and students interested in private equity and venture capital.
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Our Private Equity Club and Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Club are student run and driven. Led by students with industry experience, these clubs give you access to some of the world’s foremost financiers and investors and provide guidance for breaking into the industry.
The clubs also play host to the Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference, special training seminars, competitions, speakers from private equity and venture capital firms, academic treks to business centers, and social events.
Join the Private Equity Club
Join the Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Club -
APEX is an innovative, global, advanced academic experience for full-time students in our One- and Two-Year MBA Programs. Based on relevant prior experience and proven interest in and commitment to the industry post-graduation, select students are invited to APEX when they submit their admissions application.
The key components of APEX include:
- 1:1 industry mentorship from senior private equity alumni
- A tailored, accelerated private equity curriculum, including an advanced deep dive course
- Academic mentorship from Kellogg faculty
- Diverse cohort of exceptional and supportive peers in the same field
This interdisciplinary program enables advanced students to learn from the best in the industry with an emphasis on coursework designed to set them up for long-term success.
I am constantly learning from the PE/VC community at Kellogg. Leveraging the collective experience of my peers has allowed me to refine and apply my investment thesis.