Professional skills and identity development for students

Forensics student The September DAP forum explored the theme of developing employability skills in graduates and how work integrated learning can be embedded in the curriculum. Ensuring our graduates are employable is our core business, but they should also be equipped with skills that will endure, making them competitive for multiple jobs and/or portfolio careers throughout their lives.

The forum looked at, developing employability skills in graduates, what the Career Services unit offers by way of support to students, and some of the initiatives that have already been developed across the University, such as the way in which work integrated learning opportunities are embedded in curricula in various disciplines.

The forum began with Sally Macarthur presenting the work of Professor Bennett from Curtin University, focusing on her Developing Employability Assessment Tool. Typically, the tool, which effectively tests students’ self and career literacies (basic literacy, rhetorical literacy, critical literacy, occupational literacy, emotional literacy, and ethical, cultural and social literacy), is administered at the start of studies, each year in line with careers units, and pre- and post-placement. At Curtin University, Professor Bennett says that they ask students to bring a recently completed report with them to all career services appointments so that students have begun to think about their needs before they come. Importantly, employability development is not employment, a destination, achieved at graduation, a certificate, a job, or something that is developed exclusively in the workplace. Rather, it's “the ability to find, create and sustain meaningful work across lengthening working lives and multiple work settings” (Bennett 2016).

Following this presentation, Patricia Parish, Acting Manager of Western Sydney University’s Careers Unit, outlined their programs, such as work ready, WiSE, graduate recruitment preparation, and career launch. She also discussed the connection between their projects and the extant research.

Leigh Wilson then presented some videos created by various Schools across the University, demonstrating work-integrated learning initiatives that have been embedded in the curriculum. By the end of the morning, it was evident that Western Sydney University has already made significant inroads into preparing students for careers.

Learning Futures.NOW. Issue 2.

-November 2017-