Collaboration skills have become one of the most crucial applied skills in the world of work. In fact, a survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities revealed that more than 80 percent of employers look for collaboration skills in new recruits. Unfortunately, only less than 40 percent of new graduates are considered ready to collaborate in teams.
The reason why companies are more prone to recruit employees who have high collaboration skills is because the current era’s company’s team structure is much different from what was found ten years ago. Modern teams are much more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic (with frequent team member changes). The challenges that are faced by teams also have become more complex as teams become increasingly global, virtual and project-driven.
Student collaboration skills are undoubtedly very important in building social networks and careers. This is what have driven campuses around the world to encourage their students to develop collaboration skills while studying in college.
Education practitioners strongly believe that when students are placed in an environment where they must depend on one another to achieve success, they will be encouraged to strengthen their important soft skills, such as communication, problem solving, and critical thinking.
Collaboration skills are also needed to build trust and friendship. These skills will be greatly shaped when students work in teams. In addition, friendly competition in the classroom and in the business environment can spur motivation among peers.
Universitas Prasetiya Mulya emphasizes collaborative learning by enterprising so that students are able to increase their knowledge and skills through collaborative work with other students from various departments and generations. These collaborative work often involve alumni, industry, and the government by combining business knowledge with engineering, science and technology.
Prasmul students have launched many programs as a result of collaborative work among students from varied study programs. Here are a few of them:
TutorAja is a cross-departmental collaboration of S1 Business, S1 Finance and Banking, and S1 Accounting study programs. It is a Tutor-On-Demand Platform that was built to specifically serve university students. The idea to launch TutorAja came from the many problems, especially adaptation problem, felt by new students when they enter the new campus environment. It was frequently found that students who were smothered and cornered by those many problems, took shortcuts by cheating or giving up. In the worst situation, these problematic students were expelled by the university. From these problems, arose TutorAja. TutorAja is a platform that creates a collaborative ecosystem that connects students from different batches, so senior students can help their juniors in adapting to the university live and achieving their desired targets.
Responding to the challenges and the advancement of artificial intelligence development, a collaboration between students and lecturers from the Computer Systems Engineering Study Program has resulted an AI system that can be utilized to assist medical personnel in detecting pneumonia. This research project was funded by the APNIC Foundation, an international organization whose field is overseeing internet security in Asia.
In addition to the previously mentioned collaboration, Prasmul team has also worked with INSA Center Val de Loire, France. Agung Alfiansyah, the Head of Computer Systems Engineering at Universitas Prasetiya Mulya, led the team to produce a learning machine system that can ensure the privacy and anonymity of patient’s personal information. Not only in the medical field, Mr. Alfiansyah and team has also developed and utilized an AI system that enables financial institutions, such as banks, to safely share data with each other while keeping their information secure and protected.
It seems like Prasmul’s students have endless creativity. After the successful run of Tutor Aja, came Tutorku. Tutorku is the fruit of collaboration between S1 Branding and S1 Business students. It is an effective and easy tutoring platform that opens every one month before exam periods. The tutors of this program are selected from students who have a minimum of 3.6 GPA. The beauty of this platform is the flexibility. For example, both tutors and students are free to choose their study locations. With its recent popularity, this platform has a high potential to be implemented in various campuses in Indonesia.
The collaborative work between Gracia Tumakaka (S1 Branding) and Sally Cationa (S1 Business Mathematics) has resulted in the Catika Group. This cross-departmental collaboration presents fast-consumed news to inspire, educate, and motivate prospective entrepreneurs in Indonesia, who often need constant and tremendous support to keep their enthusiasm alive. Now Catika is an active medium to connect entrepreneurs that are gathered in the Small Business Community. So far, it has gathered more than 70 startup businesses.
With the growing numbers of brilliant collaboration ideas, Prasmul continues to produce young entrepreneurs who never run out of energy to develop their business. The opportunities to connect alumni’s businesses that will strengthen, synergize, and build further collaborations are also still wide open. The question is: are you ready to join us?
