Reshaping academic delivery: Collaborative industry placement opportunities in engineering fields

Most of the Universities around the world have a similar approach in training their respective undergraduate students in preparing them for their future in the workforce. Students are to attend lecture sessions and gather knowledge about certain principles and theories and attend tutorial sessions where they solve textbook questions and try to master the concepts taught in the lectures, some of the courses they do involve undertaking laboratory or practical sessions. This has been the undergraduate academic structure in STEM fields for several decades now. While this system does produce quality students who are quite experts at what they do, there are instances where upon employment the new recruits have to be taught the working procedures or how to operate certain equipment. If the recruits were to gain these skillsets while still a student at university then this would make the transition from student to worker smoother. In this paper we will take a look at this newer method of academic delivery and discuss the findings of studies done in several countries and show how this system might be the next step forward in preparing the next generation of engineers.