#30 Mike Watson: Preparing Students for Real-World Problem Solving

Make better business decisions with data and AI—subscribe to The Decision Intelligence Lab Newsletter at ⁠⁠https://decisionintelligencelab.substack.com/⁠⁠. Three years ago, a student without a coding background couldn't ship a prototype. Today they're starting companies. Mike Watson and Vijay Mehrotra have spent years putting students in front of real clients with real problems and no safety net. In this conversation, Mike pulls back the curtain on Northwestern's Client Project Challenge: how he hunts down the right projects, why he wants a client's fourth most important problem, and why he refuses to sit in on a single client call. Then it gets interesting. AI didn't just speed things up. It moved the whole game. Building is cheap now. Knowing what to build is everything. They unpack how LLMs became 24/7 tutors, why TAs are suddenly idle, and the one skill no course has figured out how to teach. Plus straight-talk pitches for any professor or company thinking about jumping in. Chapters 0:00 - Preview & Introduction 0:43 - The Client Project Challenge class explained 3:21 - How Mike sources projects 3:58 - The "fourth most important project" rule 5:12 - Getting clients for the project 6:28 - Weekly meetings 8:06 - Assigning students to projects 11:28 - Why Mike still gets nervous 12:16 - Student anxiety and peer feedback 13:30 - Learning from success vs failure 15:32 - Student backgrounds and self-teaching 16:40 - LLMs as tutors & delivering working prototypes 18:53 - The shrinking role of TAs 21:34 - What organizations get right and wrong with AI 23:08 - Teaching students to identify problems 24:20 - Pitch to faculty colleagues 25:32 - Pitch to industry partners 26:40 - Wrap-up Follow the show Apple: [⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-decision-intelligence-lab/id1811085064⁠](⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-decision-intelligence-lab/id1811085064⁠) Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/0lFoAVKqJHTYSZNpeN61ou?si=0ae973aab0174b3b⁠ Connect with hosts Prof. Vijay Mehrotra (University of San Francisco): [⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-mehrotra-ba9498/⁠](⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-mehrotra-ba9498/⁠) Prof. Michael Watson (Northwestern University): ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-watson-07600a1⁠ About the podcast The Decision Intelligence Lab podcast delivers real-world insights for data professionals, business leaders, and anyone seeking to leverage data & AI for smarter decision-making & successful business outcomes. For business inquiries, email at [⁠decisionintelligencepodcast@gmail.com⁠](%E2%81%A0decisionintelligencepodcast@gmail.com%E2%81%A0)