UNB Program Helps Students ‘Make A Market’ For Themselves
UNB’s Catalyst Program is the crucial link between knowledge in the classroom and its real-world application.
Pairing students with employers to cut their teeth in the business world, the Catalyst Program is creating successive waves of skilled graduates for prospective employers, taking knowledge and skills gleaned from the classroom and putting them into action.
Catalyst is a consulting-based experiential learning program created by UNB’s Office of Experiential Education that prepares students to help NB-based organizations respond to immediate challenges. This year, the program matched students from UNB’s Faculty of Management with mentorship and support from IBM Canada to help them succeed in their internships.
Skilled and knowledgeable faculty in the Faculty of Management led a course – a consulting practicum – to prepare students with the academic skills they needed to succeed. The program was funded by UNB’s McKenna Institute, Mitacs, and New Brunswick’s Future NB International initiative, providing funding specifically for international students engaged in experiential learning with New Brunswick partners.
Later in the term, students completed internships with businesses and non-profits to help tackle digital innovation problems identified by those partners.
Catalyst Program participant Ruchin Dobriyal worked with SimpTek, an energy data management company, on selling its software that aggregates and analyzes data on energy use to provincial and municipal governments.
“You’re learning something and doing real-time implementation, as well,” says Dobriyal of his experience.
“The experience through the Catalyst Program is the vital connection between knowledge and proving that knowledge.”
Dobriyal navigated reams of data to narrow down and qualify a list of clients for SimpTek across Atlantic Canada, in a thorough product-validation process.
For more information follow the link below: