Timea Kadar is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is an Associate Dean at Regent College London. Her subject field is marketing and business with decades of practitioner experience and she is keen on finding new ways of embedding employability into the curriculum and holistically thinking of education helping students beyond sharing subject knowledge. She is a regular speaker at HE conferences and the host of The Academic Room podcast where inspiring educators share their best practices.
Employability is at the top of the agenda of higher education institutions, as the major barrier graduates face securing employment is the lack of work experience. Career teams at HE institutions do their share to support students with training, workshops, career fairs, and internships. However, integrating industry practice into the curriculum enables students to gain experience while in the classroom, and working on their activities, course projects, and assignments. See below five levels of integration starting from easy to implement with minimal or no funding to more complex ones.
Integrating industry practice in the lectures and seminars requires collaboration between the industry professional and the academic to ensure that the content meets the learning as well as the employability objectives.
Inviting an industry guest speaker
Luckily there are several Industry professionals, experts from small businesses to large corporations who like to give back and deliver an hour-long session on their fields of expertise and/or share the lessons of their journeys. Students benefit from hearing about the subject from a practitioner’s view, and seeing how the theory shared by the academic is applied in practice. The guest speaker can facilitate an activity where students try themselves and get valuable feedback on their progress.
A long-term collaboration with industry professionals is encouraged, allowing all sides to work on a deeper integration with a more effective impact. Establishing an Entrepreneurs in Residence program allows academics to tap into the experience of a pool of practitioners who are aware of the learning objectives and needs of the students. In return, the university can give entrepreneurs access to research and partnerships.
Organising study tours
Take the classroom outside the university: to a local company, agency, large organisation, factory, industry body, hotel or any institution that matches the module learning outcomes and allows students to have an immersive experience. Study tours provide great opportunities to explore the premises, meet multiple practitioners onsite, and build connections in their industry. The practitioner can deliver a session as part of the tour that complements the academic content.
Depending on the location of the university, it might take more effort to organise a study tour that fits the session timing and has the capacity for the group, but it has a positive impact on students’ engagement and performance.
Working on a real-life project
Depending on the subject, students are assigned to work on various activities in the seminar to apply theory in practice. Apart from (or instead of) looking at case studies and mock projects, students can work on an actual problem a startup, charity, or business is facing.
It’s a great way to help the community and offer expert help to those who otherwise couldn’t afford it. The business shares the challenge, or project they need help with that fits into the course content and learning objective (e.g. launching a new product line, needing more subscribers, or a new app etc.). Students work on the solution applying in practice what they learnt at the sessions and relying on feedback from the academics. They then pitch the solution to the business who share their feedback and are free to use it to help their businesses. Students gain real-life experience, which they can include in their job application, while they can prove themselves by being involved in industry challenges.
Industry software project
Being familiar with industry-related software and platforms is often a requirement in job advertisements. Collaborating with industry software providers, students get access to the software during the semester, while a guest speaker from the provider helps them get to speed with it.
The assessment is a project where they need to use the software as well as the theory, frameworks, and strategies covered in the session. The academic and the software provider work together to give feedback and – if needed – technical help to students.
This enables students to experiment with work projects in a safe space and build a portfolio they can include in their job application.
Simulation
Students form ‘companies’, each representing a crucial field like HR, Operations, Finance, and Marketing. After being lectured on each by a specialist lecturer of the discipline, they set up the company, plan the business strategy, and play the game. Seeing the outcomes of their plans provides them with data to be able to make adjustments and plan for the next rounds. They learn by doing not only in the respective disciplines but also in areas like leadership, teamwork, decision-making, handling failure, and many others.
Process of integration
Set up a working group of academics, practitioners, recruiters, students, and career team to explore the needs and challenges and plan accordingly.
- Identify the employability skills the learning outcomes of the module support
- Find the best fit and form of industry practice that would be beneficial to include in the module and the assessment (and is feasible for the institution)
- Working with the career team, reach out to the companies, and entrepreneurs through network, introductions, or cold outreach
- Plan the involvement of the industry practice and how it complements the academic content.
- Encourage students to involve the experience on their CV, LinkedIn
Outcomes
Integrating industry experience into the curriculum has its challenges like working with third-party party stakeholders, securing financial resources, and providing extra support to students with limited digital literacy skills. On the other hand, student satisfaction and performance improve as a result of higher engagement, graduate outcomes increase, and students have a higher chance of securing a job right after graduation, or even during their studies.