Trying to bridge the gap between education and employment.
I'm a recent graduate and I have decided to solve the problem of the increasing gap between academics/skills and the industry needs, especially with the rise in the usage of gen ai by companies. Most recent graduates are unemployed simply because of their lack of skills and readiness to enter the workspace.
In an attempt to tackle this, my friend and I have decided to come up with a system which would help students to better prepare for the industry even before they graduate.
We have two main focus points in solving this problem:
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Promoting working on and learning/strengthening skills through working on better projects to strengthen portfolios.
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Focusing on enabling interdisciplinary collaboration to simulate real workspaces, getting students used to working with others from different academic backgrounds.
Although we have a way bigger vision for this, we want to start it off with a small initiative, also validating the demand in the process.
We have decided to host a 20 day cohort to help students work on industry standard problem statements. Here's the list of things that would happen in the cohort in extremely simple terms:
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Only students who are serious about their portfolios will be selected based on an application.
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Limiting the intake of the first cohort to only ui/ux designers and developers. Will be pairing them up to work in teams.
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Problem statements will be given by industry experts according to current trends and demands.
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Will be mentored and reviewed by industry experts on areas of improvement.
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Will consist of multiple sessions/talks/workshops in the selected domains to provide more value.
If you are interested in mentoring/guiding the students (will only have 3-4 sessions at most) or being a part of this in any way possible, drop down a comment and I will reach out. Note that since this is our first cohort, we will not be able to financially incentivise the industry experts. Open to feedback or guidance as well!
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
The one thing i have noticed, is bridging the gap between education and employment can only be thru internships/ apprenticeships. Not done effectively in our country. Intern is seen as short term free labour. hire than for 1 month have them prepare a report and be done. They should be seen as cheap labour and not free labour. Mentorship works only in an independent professional jobs like doctors, CA or lawyers. In corporate world mentorship often translates into chamcha/chela relationship. Any 2-4 hrs sessions will literally translate into another classroom education. for eg: How do we train people in sales? calling in a few industry experts to give a talk is useless. they would simply copy and make a few slides from Phillip Kotler and talk about it.
Industry must now create "internship roles" unfortunately, this has become the entry level roles hired thru campus placement.