This past November, we asked students to talk with us about work integrated learning as part of our annual campaign. We wanted to know what came to mind when students thought about work integrated learning to try and gauge the type of opportunities they have access to on their campus and those that they would like to see more of. We have created a word cloud to visually depict the responses from students across most of our member campuses.
As you can tell by the size of the phrase, practical experience in the classroom came up as the number one way to integrate skills one might need for a job in post-secondary. This approach has the potential to reach all students from all programs. The asterisks on some of the responses indicates a categorization of several similar and/or campus specific responses and are outlined below.
Volunteering Off Campus: volunteering opportunities for non co-op students, volunteering with community groups, reading helper volunteer at a local high school, volunteering abroad with Beyond Borders, volunteering locally and internationally, community involvement, volunteering in the community, Shinerama, volunteering in an environment that I want to work in one day, Streetlight, shadowing a physician, volunteering at the Bird AFAR, hashtag Lunchbag London, Volunteering in Costa Rica, volunteering at a hearing clinic, volunteering with public health Niagara, Happy Soul Project.
Volunteering on Campus: volunteering with the writing support centre, Mentorship Plus, Smart Start, Besties for Breasties, working with a student-run NGO on policy.
Involvement in Clubs: Women in Leadership Laurier, more clubs for my program, associate clubs, UNICEF club, NDP club, Brock Film club
Working Off Campus: Loreal education team assistant, entry level jobs, international work experience, Children’s Aid Society, lobbyist group involvement, teaching English in Peru, working with a musician residency, work study at the Museum of Archaeology, municipal government involvement, human resource experience at a multi-national level company, international work term, working for a non-profit.
Working on Campus: being a campus ambassador, working as a research assistant, Women’s Issues network coordinator, clubs policy coordinator, working for Western Athletics, working at the Spoke, theatre marketing, residence life staff, tricolour outlet, food bank, Common Ground coffee house, peer support centre, working at the student life centre, the Queen’s pub.
