Recruit the best teachers in higher education. Recruit the best students for internships and work-study programs 54

“Teachers must design a more detailed syllabus which clearly sets expectations, explains course prerequisites, project expectations, submission deadlines and grading. Each syllabus must also include a more in-depth teacher profile so we students can research them.

Universities must take greater control over the course content; content should not be solely at the teacher’s discretion.

Universities need to make the course program and syllabuses more readily available to us students at the beginning of the year.”

– Student

“It is often the ‘zapping’ mentality of today’s generation of students that causes learning difficulty and prevents teachers from pushing their course subjects to the end.

You explain a concept, ask the class if there are any questions and get no response or a simple “No”. So you select a student or a team to ask a follow-up question and none of them are capable of explaining, or are willing to explain, what was just covered.

It’s extremely frustrating.”

– Teacher

“Have empathy. Teachers must keep in mind we students are beginners, not experts like you may be. The course subject may not be our individual strength or our passion.

And understand many of us students have part-time jobs and apprenticeships so our time is short and we have challenges at work outside of class. Even during class days companies sometimes expect us to work.”

– Student

“Teachers must teach through example and through concrete situations. Base course content on projects and case studies with real, modern-day companies and real contact with companies.

We students learn more during our internships and apprenticeships than we do in class because we are put into real situations.”

– Student

“Enforce academic standards. Teachers are not automatically respected by students. Beginning from their first semester, universities must require students attend workshops that set professional expectations, rules and expected behavior along with consequences.

Students are no longer in high school and their transformation into the professional world may not be obvious to them. Students need to understand, feel and respect this difference, otherwise the student and their teachers are set up for failure.

Give students a sense of responsibility and professionalism, hold them accountable and empower teachers to enforce consequences.”

– Teacher

“Classes and course projects should add value to our professional career, not just help us students fulfill basic requirements for our diploma.”

– Student

“Teachers should teach less theory, less rote memorization and a lot more practice.

Don’t just assign exercises. Show us students the real objectives of the exercise and link them to what we could do later.

Design interactive, operational courses with role play to prepare us students for our entry into the professional world.”

– Student

“On the first day of each new class teachers should give us students a survey to understand our questions and expectations on the subject, and build them into the course.

Stop requiring us students to do so much work that is not useful for our future.

Raise the bar. It is incredibly dumb what we students are studying.”

– Student

“University should offer students better internship options than from small, struggling companies nobody has ever heard of.

Offer merit-based internships to motivate students in class and reduce inequality of opportunity.”

– Student