Business-University collaboration in designing Work-based experiences.

Abstract

Some authors have claimed that a gap exists between the competences presented by university students at graduation and the needs of the labor market organizations. Albeit previous studies suggest that, in recent times, students have been prepared with growing amounts of knowledge (cognitive skills) and technical abilities, but it seems that they still falter with respect of some crucial soft skills. Critical thinking, teamwork, informed decision-making, adaptability, and communication are among the most demanded skills in the labor market. Under the Erasmus+ project Think4Jobs, a University-Business collaboration was implemented to design work-based activities to be included in pilot course curricula of the graduation programmes in five areas: Teacher Training, Business and Economics, Business Informatics, English as Foreign Language and Veterinary Medicine. In the present communication we would like to discuss how the identification of needs was performed and how the University-Business collaboration was developed to construct blended curricula in some courses of the Veterinary Medicine programme, including the definition of outcomes and identification of skills and dispositions to be developed, the design of workbased activities and the assessment of the students´ performance