Leveraging Existing Knowledge to Match Industry Expectations

Abstract

During the last four years, information systems graduates participated in a practicum project during their last study year and took part in various professional activities in the industry in accordance with their professional aspirations and their desired specialty. The main purpose of this project was to reduce the gap between the graduates' acquired academic knowledge and the industry expectations. The aim of this chapter was to reveal the graduates' perceived contributions of the project. For that matter, semi-structured questionnaires and interviews with graduates who participated in the project in the last four years were conducted. The graduates experienced real workplace environments, acquired extended knowledge and skills, built social infrastructure to assist them with future job seeking, and above all gained real-world experience that helps them to build their professional image, and gain confidence in their traits and abilities. In addition, the practicum-based approach was compared with other common approaches used to bridge the gap, and its relative advantages and disadvantages were discussed.