๐ช๐ต๐ ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐บ๐๐น๐๐ถ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น-๐น๐ถ๐ณ๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ด๐ฒ๐ (๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ป๐ผ๐ ๐ท๐๐๐ ๐ฎ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด๐น๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ด๐ฒ) ๐ถ๐ป ๐ฎ ๐๐ป๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฎ ๐ด๐ผ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฎ.
To make a course more โreal-lifeโ, lecturers can offer so called real-life cases (or challenges as we like to call them) to student teams to work on.
After talking to many lecturers, I realized that there are roughly two setups.
1๏ธโฃ Using one real-life challenge from one company that all student teams work on.
2๏ธโฃ Offering each team a unique company challenge to work on.
I prefer the second setup. Why?
๐ ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ฐ๐ต๐ฒ๐
Offering student teams more choice increases the chance of getting matched to a challenge of a company/industry of their preference, which positively affects their motivation. (Assuming that the lecturer will not randomly assign the challenges but takes into account studentsโ preferences.)
๐ ๐ ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ด๐๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ป๐ถ๐ฒ๐
When companies get assigned one team, they can spend all available time with that team (e.g. providing feedback, discussing the progress and next steps, etc). Using a setup where letโs say 10โ15 teams work on one challenge often leads to very limited or even no interaction between student team and company representatives.
๐ ๐๐ป๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น-๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐น๐ฑ ๐ฒ๐
๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ
Working together with the company representative (ideally on a weekly basis), will boost the student teams real-world experience, compared to working on a case without any interaction with the company representative.
๐ฉโ๐ป ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐๐ป๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ฒ๐
Having a close relationship with the company representative provides career opportunities for students, assuming they do a great job, at the company.
Also lecturers can greatly benefit from adding multiple real-life challenges to their courses, simply because they increase their network and they can explore follow up projects with those companies (such as research projects, thesis/graduation projects, etc.).
One down side for lecturers is that it takes a lot of time to recruit all the challenges and match them to the student teams. Well, this is only true for lecturers that donโt work with Master Challenge ๐.
Lecturers that do make use of Master Challenge save a lot of time because we (Master Challenge) recruit suitable real-life challenges for them. And the platform makes the process of recruiting, approving, and matching challenges super efficient.
Feel free to reach out to us if you want to make your course more real-life and want to use our free (in most cases) recruitment services.
