Ep 7. Bridging the gap between university and real world

Flight Mode

This past week at the Australian Edutech Conference, Shirley Alexander from University of Technology Sydney gave a captivating talk on how to prepare work-ready graduates in 2018. She highlighted a current problem which I found heartbreaking to accept. That is, Australia is currently facing its all time highest unemployment rates for recent graduates. Ie. Students graduating from university today are likely to be out of a job in their first 6 to 12 months from graduation. More than ever before. Of course, this would be the most de-moralising experience for a student who’s invested years of his or her life acquiring a degree, only to find out they’re not walking into a job in their field like they expected to or that they were told they would by family, peers or previous high school teachers. Shirley puts this down to two things: A lack of interpersonal and communication skills A lack of care in creating applications specific to a particular role