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Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo
Industry program booming despite the times
9 December 2009
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| Francesca Strati |
The Faculty of Information Technology's Industry Based Learning Program (IBL) has grown in size and strength in 2009 despite the global financial crisis.
Seven new industry partners joined the program this year – C3 Business Solutions, Constraint Technologies, KPMG, Origin Energy, Oxfam, QSR International and Pitcher Partners.
The program is now offered in all four of the faculty's undergraduate degree courses at Clayton, Caulfield and Berwick campuses and the number of full-time 22-week placements for the best and brightest students has increased from 63 in 2007 to 81 in 2009.
Program director Sue Bedingfield said the new industry partners, the broadening of the program, and the boost in placement numbers were all indicators that the Industry Based Learning (IBL) program offered my Monash was one of the best in the country.
"Our IBL students are in big demand when they graduate," Ms Bedingfield said.
"These students have skills that make the highly employable and very attractive to industry. About 80 per cent of IBL graduates are recruited by industry partners and between one-third and one-half of them join the 'big four' accounting firms," she said.
The IBL program has been running for more than 20 years and has attracted praise from industry partners, such as Deloitte.
The major recruiters of IBL students in the last five years were Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, National Australia Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Francesca Strati, who undertook an IBL placement at PwC in 2008, is now working there as a consultant in Risk and Controls Solutions.
Francesca said the program was "invaluable" and had helped her develop vital skills and contextualise the knowledge she acquired through her Monash degree.
"The program gave me the opportunity to work in two prestigious organisations for a year, enabling me to develop my skills and apply my university studies in practical situations," she said.
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