Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

If you are enrolled in the Bachelor of Engineering or the Bachelor of Computer Science and degrees combined with these, you must complete relevant, discipline-related work experience.

You will not be able to graduate until this work experience is completed and a report submitted and assessed as acceptable.

1. Weeks of work experience required
2. Enrolment
3. Expected outcomes
4. Assessment
5. Format
6. Writing
7. Submission

Weeks of work experience required

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Enrolment

Students do not enrol in the Professional Practicum units.  Upon successful completion, the appropriate unit will be added to your enrolment and the result released together with the other enrolled units for the semester.

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Expected outcomes

• Ability to contact and liaise with employers to organise work experience
• Ability to reflect on work experience and articulate professional benefits
• Ability to constructively criticise workplace practices
• Ability to communicate ideas concisely
• Satisfactory performance in a work environment as assessed by employer

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Assessment

Reports should include the following:

• a short description of how you arranged your work experience;
• a short description of the employer's business and its organisation;
• a concise outline of the projects in which you were involved, and your role in those projects;
• detailed observations of management and labour relationships;
• detailed observations of inter-professional relationships.
• a critical assessment of the value of your experience including reflection upon your development as a professional.
• your ability to communicate professional issues within a report structure and within a stated timeframe.

Some discussion of the following is highly desirable:

• technical methods employed by various professionals or trades people 
• details of project work that you considered vital to the success of the project
• health and safety issues within the workplace

Reports will be assessed based on the above criteria. They will be awarded either Ungraded Pass (UP) or Ungraded Fail (UF). Unsatisfactory reports must be resubmitted until a grade of UP is awarded. Work experience that is deemed to be unsuitable for your discipline will result in a UF.

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Format

The report must be typed and clearly laid out with headings and references. Information recorded on the front cover must include:

• Student's name
• Student number
• Course enrolled in

About 2000 words is a sufficient length with diagrams and pictures to help with explanation (excessive size is unnecessary). The Certificate(s) of Work Performed must be completed and placed as appendices to the report.

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Writing

The literary quality of your reports will have a substantial bearing on your professional reputation. You should therefore use the Professional Practicum report to practise appropriate structure and reporting style. Particular attention should be paid to spelling, grammar and presentation. The latter depends on planning and orderly thinking, beginning with overall layout, sorting of content, and then logical construction of paragraphs and sentences.

For details on how to write your report, see the guide to report writing.

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Submission

Reports (with appended Certificate(s) of Work Performed) must be submitted to your School no later than the last day of the teaching week of the semester in which you are intending to have the Professional Practicum recorded as being successfully completed.  Please keep a copy of your report.

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