Improving Employability for Students through Co-Creation and External Collaboration: Experiences and Outcomes

This paper presents how a ninth semester teaching programme created employability skills among students. During the semester, students were expected to collaborate with a company or an organization to solve a task set by the external partner. The students used their academic and analytical skills and competences as a part of working with the 'product' (pitch and report), which they also delivered to the external partners. The students thus gradually became aware of the competences they used. The collaboration with companies and organizations formed part of and was integrated into the courses taught during the semester. The theories, concepts and themes presented in the instruction during the first part of the semester could be used by students in their collaboration with the external partner, both practically and theoretically. Students worked with external partners for six weeks during the second half of the semester.