Why industry experience should be designed into every degree—not left to chance
In higher education, placement is often seen as optional. It’s included in certain courses but not others, viewed as a competitive opportunity rather than a standard part of the curriculum, and considered supplementary rather than central to the degree. However, if we acknowledge that some learning experiences only happen in real-world settings, then placement cannot stay optional; it must become a fundamental component.
In numerous ways, we have become very skilled at mimicking industry practices. We craft assessments that imitate real briefs, replicate workplace situations, and incorporate actual examples. Students engage in pitching, producing, analysing, and reflecting within thoughtfully designed classroom settings. This work is significant because it boosts confidence, develops skills, and links theory with practice. Nonetheless, it remains a simulation at its core.
Entering a real workplace presents a fundamentally different experience. Unlike a classroom practice or case study, it involves a genuine environment with actual constraints, stakes, and consequences. Here, the hidden aspects of professional practice become apparent. Students learn how decisions are made under time pressure, how communication varies across teams, how ambiguity is handled rather than eliminated, and how priorities are negotiated instead of being fixed. These skills cannot be easily taught through theory alone; they must be experienced.
There is also a growing body of evidence supporting this. Students who engage in work-integrated learning demonstrate stronger employability outcomes, greater confidence, and a clearer sense of professional identity. Yet access to this kind of learning remains uneven.
Beyond Accreditation: Unequal Access to Real Learning
In many disciplines such as education, nursing, and allied health, placement is non-negotiable. This is not because universities have collectively agreed on its value, but because accrediting bodies require it. As a result, students in these fields graduate having already worked in their profession.
The question, then, is what happens to everyone else.
We have established a system where some students graduate after gaining experience in real workplaces, while others graduate with only simulated experiences. In many courses, placements are still optional, highly competitive, or entirely missing. It is up to students to find these opportunities themselves, rather than them being integrated into their curriculum.
This is more than a structural problem; it’s an educational concern. Accepting that certain types of learning occur only in real-world settings implies that restricting placements to accredited disciplines also restricts access to those learning experiences.
Why Timing Matters: From Validation to Transformation
Even when placement is available, it is most often positioned at the end of a degree. It is framed as a final test or proof of readiness, a moment when students demonstrate what they have learned. However, at this stage, the opportunity is inherently limited. There is minimal time for iteration, little room to fail and recover, and few opportunities to bring those insights back into structured learning, where they can be unpacked, challenged, and extended.
In this model, placement serves as validation rather than development. The experience is undoubtedly valuable, but it arrives too late to meaningfully shape the rest of the student’s learning journey. If placement is where learning becomes real, it cannot be confined to the final stage of a degree. It needs to occur early enough to influence how students learn, not merely how they conclude their studies.
Something shifts the moment a student steps into a real workplace. Assumptions are challenged, confidence is tested, and career paths either become clearer or are questioned. These moments are not failures; they are breakthroughs. They provide students with a level of clarity that is difficult to achieve through classroom-based learning alone.
Equally important, the orientation to learning begins to change.
In the classroom, students often focus (understandably) on what they must do to pass or achieve a particular grade. In the workplace, that concern begins to fade. It is replaced by a different set of questions: what needs to be done, what the task involves, why it matters, and how they can contribute.
The emphasis shifts from performance to purpose. Rather than completing an assessment, students are completing work that has meaning beyond the classroom. This is more than a change in context; it represents a fundamental shift in mindset—one that is difficult to replicate through even the most thoughtfully designed assessment.
This is why timing matters.
When placement occurs too late, this shift in thinking cannot be acted on. Students may gain insight, but they have little opportunity to apply it, refine it, or respond to it within the structure of their degree.
Positioned earlier, however, placement becomes transformative. It not only reveals what students know, but reshapes how and why they continue to learn.
Placement with Runway
If multiple placements are possible, the case is clear. Students should engage with industry more than once, with early experiences providing exposure and later ones enabling refinement. However, even when this is not feasible, timing still matters.
This is where the concept of placement with runway becomes essential. Placement should happen early enough to influence the learning process, yet late enough to be impactful. Most importantly, it should be early enough for students to revisit and act on their discoveries.
Positioning placement around the two-thirds point of a degree provides this balance. Students possess enough knowledge to contribute substantially, yet still have time to reflect, adapt, deepen, or pivot. A key benefit of placement is not just confirmation, but realisation. If this realisation occurs too late, it cannot be acted upon.
From Opportunity to Expectation
At Swinburne University of Technology, placement is one example of how institutions are beginning to rethink this. Through Moon Shot 1 of its 2025 Strategic Plan, industry experience is positioned as central to ensuring every graduate is job-ready.
Across Australia, universities such as RMIT University and University of Technology Sydney are embedding industry projects and internships into course design, while disciplines such as education and health have long required sustained placements at institutions including Monash University and Deakin University. At Victoria University, work-integrated learning is embedded across many courses, supported by the applied nature of the Block Model.
The shift is clear. The question is no longer whether industry experience matters, but whether we are willing to make it universal.
The Hidden Work Behind Placement
There is, of course, a reason why placement is not universally embedded across all degrees. It is complex. It requires industry partnerships, coordination, administration, and ongoing relationship management. Too often, this work is invisible.
In many cases, particularly in smaller courses, it is carried by individual academics who source opportunities, manage partnerships, and support students alongside their teaching. When it works, it is because of commitment and goodwill. However, this is not sustainable.
If placement is to move from optional to essential, it cannot rely on individuals alone. It must be supported at an institutional level.
Designing Degrees Differently
If we believe that placement changes how students learn, then we can no longer treat it as optional. It must be designed into the degree, not as a final step or a competitive opportunity, but as a core part of the learning experience.
This requires more than adding a placement unit or increasing the number of opportunities. It requires rethinking how degrees are structured, how learning is sequenced, and how industry engagement is integrated throughout the student journey. It means designing experiences that are not only available but also purposeful, scaffolded, and positioned to influence what comes next.
It also means recognising that this cannot rest with individual academics alone. If placement is to be essential, it must be supported by institutional commitment, through partnerships, coordination, and systems that make these experiences sustainable and equitable.
Placement is not the end of learning. It is the moment learning becomes real. It is where students begin to understand not just what they know, but why it matters and how it applies.
And if that moment is as important as we claim it is, then it should not be left to chance.
Reflection Questions
- Why do some students graduate with work experience in their field, while others have only simulated it?
- What would it mean to treat industry experience as essential across all degrees, rather than as an optional or competitive advantage?
- At what point in a degree do students first encounter real-world practice, and is that early enough to shape how they approach their learning?
- If placement occurs only once, does it provide enough runway for students to reflect on, respond to, and act on what they have learned?
- What would need to change, structurally, culturally, and institutionally, to make placement essential rather than optional?
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