Abstract:

Seeking employment is a priority for graduated students. However, many college graduates are facing a very difficult time in accomplishing this goal. At one time, they believed that obtaining a college degree alone would guarantee them a ticket to professional success, but today that is not the case. Today’s job market is not friendly to new graduates. According to Jones &Abes (2004), during 2011, numerous graduates below the age of twenty-five are unemployed or underemployed. This can also be attributed to the requirements of various job vacancies, whereby most of the employers ask for at least two years of experience. Hence, locking out numerous graduates who never had a chance to acquire experience in their field (Jones &Abes, 2004). So how would the university do to help those students compete in the job market? The CIT program at IUPUI has developed an experimental learning course named Living Lab (CIT 48500). The goal of the Living Lab is to give the students the opportunity to gain experience while studying in school, so that they can better prepare themselves after graduating. This paper will perform qualitative analysis through the use of interviews of three former students who have obtained full-time employment after successfully completing the Living Lab to identify if the Living Lab has had an impact on the students gaining their employment.

Keywords:

Experiential learning, experience, living lab, employment.