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Work Integrated Learning projects within RMIT are developed in
conjunction with our industry advisory committee and
there?s an expectation from employers that our graduates
that we turn out are actually very practically focused and once they get
into the workplace that they?re not required to be trained as much, they can
hit the ground running and
really provide an immediate value to an employer.
I found that WIL provided me with the learning experience
of how to put what I?ve learnt from Uni
into the real world and make it relevant to a real situation
such as Australia Post proposal to us.
We just thought it?d be a great opportunity to build some
connection between the real world ofbusiness and what business is looking
for
and what students
can actually offer in terms of their generation.
So business people have an idea about
what happens in terms of markets
and students obviously have some fresh ideas and fresh perspectives
around what suits their generation. It?s a nice link.
So the philosophy of Work Integrated Learning is the melding of
academic requirements with the rigors of industry experience in industry requirements.
My Work Integrated Learning involved the interaction with
not only the teachers and my class mates
but also it involved the real issue
of this being a real project and being a real business.
It?s not just some case study or some tutorial that we are going to assess and do in class.
It?s something that?s in the real world.
The WIL project for me
provided me with
invaluable working experience and I gained lots of great insights from working with
Australia Post.
We all go to school.
to study and to learn and that
theoretical academia is important
but more so to supplement it with having to find real world solutions and come to terms with actual challenges that I?m facing, that?s really interesting
to supplement it with having to find real world solutions and come to terms with actual challenges that I?m facing, that?s really interesting
having to find real world solutions and
come to terms with
actual challenges that I?m facing, that?s really interesting.
WIL provided me with
the hands on approach of how, what I?ve learnt from uni, how to put that
into real business situations.
For example, we had to actually learn how to make a marketing plan from
scratch.
The process for the students in the classroom starts with a brief
that they would get from the client. The students are then all split into teams
and then they, and the other teams work through the challenges,
the SWAT analysis, the PEST analysis, you know, the development of marketing objectives and then
the development of marketing and business plans in direct response to the
challenge that the client has presented.
One of the things that we came to RMIT with was the challenge
of how do we revolutionise our merchandising.
We've been doing it the same way for
fifty years
So whilst the industry standard is to have a whole bunch of colour chips and for people
to pick chips and try and decide for themselves how it?s all going to work together,
we challenged the students in the theories of creativity class with the
question, ?Is there a better way we could do it??
One of the really important parts of the process, of course, is providing students
with opportunity to present their key findings to the clients in the same way that they
would if they were in any work environment.
So we collectively decide what are the key points that need to be addressed,
what?s the approach they were taking and then I guess we talk about the
wow factor, ?How can we really sell what ideas we?ve come up with to the client??
I think the students really benefit from this by
thinking about applying their knowledge in the real world. So the intention is that
they have to think through
what is a real world opportunity and how they sell it into people like me,
business people, within an organization. So they get the benefit from applying theory into
practice
So being able to work on a real project, being able to deal with real clients
and being able
to think about something and then run your ideas and your concepts past the
stakeholders that you would be running it past in real life if you were actually
working. I think that?s invaluable experience.
Work Integrated Learning is important to students because it allows us to give them
or provide for them
the academic requirements that we have
along with the skill sets that they would need working in industry and there
skill sets such as responding to client briefs, stakeholder management, project
management, design research within the context of a challenge that is presented to industry employment.