Academic-industry partnerships: Developing new concepts in student engineering industry experience

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is recognised by industry and academia for its benefits including preparing students for the workforce, allowing for extra resources on projects and opportunity to trial potential recruits for industry. Since 2013 the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering developed a suite of WIL options and introduced mandatory 12 weeks of industry experience for all undergraduate students. Changes were introduced to increase student employability and decrease the skills gap. The success can be attributed to the employment of a WIL Coordinator, implementation of streamlined processes and increased brand awareness of flexible WIL options. There is great potential in this new approach as we are able to diversify relationships by offering flexible options for students to undertake placements/projects and for industry to be involved in educating future generations of engineers.