WIL 611 allows graduate students to engage in work-integrated learning (WIL) as part of an interdisciplinary team, working on projects with an industry or community partner focused on one of the five Global Futures.
There are two phases to this course. For the first four weeks, students will engage in a series of lectures that focus on building specific skills and knowledge to prepare for the project experience. There will also be opportunities to engage with peers and reflect individually on career curriculum focused on identity, goal setting, networking and articulating your unique skillset.
Typically, starting in week five, students will, in an assigned team, engage and respond to a real industry client’s project brief. Students will function as consultants, analyzing the organization’s challenge, conducting research and analysis and presenting their findings and recommendations in a tailored report and presentation. This consulting experience will enable students to develop and track their professional skills during an authentic industry engagement. Typically, there is one client per team and each team will have a custom project brief aligned to their client’s challenge.
Each student is expected to input 120 hours of effort across the project. This includes content review, teamwork, research and client deliverable creation and reflection activities.
The course is open to graduate students in all programs/departments/schools and faculties and is taught by a faculty instructor.
What will students do in WIL 611?
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Apply academic expertise in a practical setting to real-world work situations
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Develop research and evidence-informed solutions
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Collaborate with an interdisciplinary team
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Engage in planning, organizing, and managing projects, including setting objectives, allocating resources and meeting deadlines
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Build professional relationships with industry and/or community partners
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Reflect upon strengths and gaps in current knowledge, skills and abilities
What will students get out of WIL 611?
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Apply your domain specific knowledge to real-world work situations with real industry or community partners
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Develop communication, teamwork, problem solving, time management, decision-making, critical thinking and reasoning skills
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Gain interpersonal and workplace communication skills
Winter 2025 course details
Theme: Technological Future
Course Focus: Emerging Technologies
Emerging technologies are new or developing technologies that have the potential to impact society and the economy significantly. They are characterized by rapid development, uncertainty, and the potential to create or disrupt industries.
Course Instructor: Okey Igboeli
Skills Curriculum Outcomes
During the first phase of the course students will have the opportunity to:
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Develop knowledge of emerging technologies (AI, ML, IoT, blockchain, 5G, etc.)
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Discuss the best practices in the assessment and application of emerging technologies
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Explore opportunities of ethical and adoption challenges of applying emerging technologies in solving real-world challenges
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Identify and evaluate opportunities/applications of emerging technologies
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Explore the creation/implementation of emerging technologies to offer solutions to existing business processes/products
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Practice Identifying and recommending solutions to barriers in the adoption of technology
Project Overview
In the project experience, student teams use the skills they’ve learned to assess industry clients’ challenges and evaluate and recommend solutions. Students will apply knowledge of emerging technologies and best practices in their application.
Students will have the opportunity to engage in the identification and evaluation of new or existing industry applications of emerging technologies to explore the effectiveness of existing implementations and/or create recommendations for the adoption and/or implementation of emerging technologies.
Students will examine the challenges, both technological and ethical, in the adoption of such technologies. They will recommend solutions to potential pitfalls and barriers to successful adoption and implementation of emerging technologies.
Potential Project Focus Areas
During the project experience students will engage with provided industry partners and collaboratively:
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Assess client’s use of current emerging technologies to identify inefficiencies
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Create recommendations for adoption of new emerging technologies to offer new solutions to existing/new problems
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Creating a plan and/or roadmap for industry partner’s adopting new technology to identify and overcome barriers
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Explain and describe the inefficiencies of client’s existing use/implementation of emerging technologies
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Develop use case for recommendations
Winter 2025 Expressions of Interest
Students may submit expressions of interest until the end of the add period or until course enrolment capacity is reached.
Only selected students will be contacted with further instructions for course enrolment.
Student testimonials
Working with my peers from other faculties allowed us to identify and leverage each other’s strengths for the best result. The experience was a great representation of the real world, working with an interdisciplinary team, accepting each other's thoughts because they can differ greatly when people have different backgrounds.