Collaboration with industry an integrated part of the education

Francisco Gomes, Programme Manager for Software Engineering and Mangament, describes how this works in practice. 

Hi Francisco, how do you work with collaboration in your programme? 

"We make a real effort to have collaboration with industry as an integrated element throughout the whole student journey, not just at one point in time. Industry isn't just a guest in our programme, it's a co-author of it. This co-creation comes together in a few main channels. The most common one is to expose students to the profession through guest lectures from practitioners."

Industry isn't just a guest in our programme, it's a co-author of it

"Our program council, with representatives from different industry domains, helps shape what we actually teach. Alumni come back to give students career direction. And thesis work lets students meet research and practice together, often in direct collaboration with companies." 

Let's start with the guest lectures then, how do those actually work? 

"Guest lectures are part of our courses, not standalone events, because the idea behind that is simple: we don't want to teach the abstract, we want to prepare students for the field. We've had consultants from companies such as Test Scouts share their view on testing complex software systems or moving between assignments, engineers from AWS explaining how to collect requirements from customers to develop cloud applications, and automotive engineers from Volvo explaining how they plan and execute development on complex parts of a car's software. All these experiences help students set realistic expectations about daily life in the profession." 

"My favourite part of this is the dialogue it creates. Students get to use the terms and concepts they've just learned in lecture to have an eye-to-eye conversation with a practitioner, and that's empowering for them. At the same time, it gives practitioners a chance to notice talent and the curiosity of people who are encountering these problems for the first time. It has happened that engaged students during those guests lectures are invited to interview for internships or network during company events."

Any chance some of those guests are former students themselves? 

"Absolutely! When a former student comes back as a guest industry lecturer, it brings something unique to the experience. They were recently in our students' position, so their advice on building a strong portfolio and CV feels credible and directly applicable. What I like is that it's practical and forward-looking: which competencies to prioritize for an internship aren't always the same ones to prioritize for full-time recruitment after graduation, and alumni are well placed to explain that difference.” 

You mentioned thesis work earlier too, what role does industry play there? 

"A majority of our bachelor theses are done in collaboration with industry. In fact, that adds a scientific value that allows them to publish their work, and the University support students to present that work in conferences. The thesis collaboration exposes students to real unsolved problems so they experience research not as an academic exercise but as a way to push software engineering tools and practice forward." 

"It's a two-way bridge. Students bring fresh research thinking into problems companies are actually facing, while companies get exposure to emerging methods before they become mainstream. We've also been successful in publishing some of our BSc students' research at academic conferences, where they get to present it themselves. That adds value on both sides, for industry and for academia." 

We've covered lectures, alumni, and thesis work, all fairly academic in nature. Is there a more hands-on side to this collaboration as well? 

"There is, and it's a big one. We have hackathons, which are day-long events where students get to work on mini projects brought by industry, to industry. In fact, we recently ran a hackathon with Volvo where students had to develop software and test it on an actual truck, that's a different kind of collaboration altogether, hands-on and high stakes. It's worth its own story."

Links to a few examples:

• Students in Rio presenting their theses done in collaboration with companies (LinkedIn)
• Lars Pareto's travel grant (on the Student Portal)
• Hack a Truck Hackathon