2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

To prepare students for the engineering profession, most Chinese universities require Professional Master’s students in engineering to complete “practical studies” in a real world professional context. With the recent expansion of enrollments in professional master’s degree programs, universities in China face urgent needs to develop high-quality partnerships with the industry, in order to provide joint training experiences for the students. A variety of practices have been experimented between universities and industrial partners in China. This paper compares two case studies for the development of university-industry partnerships in enhancing professional masters’ workplace readiness in China, each of which exemplifies a major approach in organizing the practical studies for professional master’s students in engineering: The first case examines a “practice base,” a broker institution that connects students to companies that are committed to the educational objectives determined by the participating universities. In the second case, the university provides a list of options for practical studies, each linked to a partner company, for students to choose.
This comparative analysis focuses on how universities and partnering institutions negotiate common interests and ensure the sustainability of the partnerships through practices of matching students to projects, articulating rights and obligations, and monitoring and regulating risk factors. The paper also assesses the respective strengths and limitations of each of the two approaches of partnerships.
Based on the comparative case study, this paper summarizes the main challenges for effective partnerships between Chinese universities and companies in preparing professional master’s students for the workplace: (1) shared understanding of the educational functions of practice studies; (2) clear deliverables; (3) stability of practice duration; and (4) flexibility in connecting students to projects.