Encourage students to apply their knowledge and think “out of the box” while collaborating with local industry - Case Study Industrial Seminar

Our societies require talented engineers, who are trained in different engineering fields. Simultaneously these students should have the ability to collaborate and work with people of different disciplines and be able to look for innovation. Engineering programs have been developing different approaches to enhance these required skills, for example through capstones and hackathons. Capstones projects, which are often several months long, aim to prepare students for the transition from school to work. Frequently, these projects are designed to serve companies or startups. Hackathon events are intense and short sessions where students solve a challenge in short periods of time, often between 24 to 36 hours. However, it is needed an approach that exposes students, of different disciplines, to a wider number of industries with a more collaborative approach. We need interventions in which students can experience how their knowledge contributes to the innovation and visions of different stakeholders. Furthermore, these learning interventions, where we promote a collaborative experience among the participants where everybody learns from everybody, should require less time than with capstones or hackathons. The University of Turku developed the Industrial Seminar on Future Technologies course for master and phd advanced students, where we address: multidisciplinarity, collaboration, connection with engineering industry and innovation. Students in this course are exposed to challenges and visions of different companies in diverse domains, e.g. biotechnology, metal industry, maritime. Each seminar session focuses on one company, and we work together to address the session's aim in at most four hours. For each session participants have a pre-assignment, which is aligned to the objective of the session, and a post-assignment that focuses on the session's reflection. An important aspect to make each session successful is the preparation of the session with the local company. Hence this course addresses different objectives: (i) Expose students to industry, (ii) Students gain awareness of how their knowledge is relevant for different industry challenges and visions, (iii) Collaboration between session participants (from different backgrounds and from the guest company), (iv) Possibility to innovate (“think out of the box”), (v) University of Turku builds bridges with the local industry, as together with each guest company we go through a process of “sharpening” the company's challenge or vision for this particular seminar session. In this paper we analyze this course with its outcomes, utilizing the final results of each session, and the feedback from students and industry representatives.