For those students worried about future job prospects and careers, some colleges and companies now are collaborating to make the transition from college to the real world easier — and striving to improve the quality of education along the way.
Students and faculty members of the supply-chain management program at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business are taking advantage of a new state-of-the-art computer lab, thanks to a donation from IBM. The supply-chain management program focuses on the study of the production process.
The $1 million lab, which opened in November, consists of high-tech servers, software and other tools meant for technological training in effective supply-chain management. It is both the first lab funded by IBM to open in the United States and the first corporate sponsorship between IBM and a supply-chain management program at a university, said Nancy Kaplan, a representative of IBM media relations in the integrated supply-chain department.
David Closs, a supply-chain management professor at Michigan State, said he has used the lab already for class experiments and simulations and has seen immediate benefits.
“The lab is exposing the students to the real- life technology used in the big corporations,” he said.
Closs assigns students scenarios that require them to use the supply-chain software, which allows students to create solutions unable to be replicated by hand, he said.
The lab also stimulates research ideas, and several other faculty members have begun new research projects using the technology, according to Closs.
“It just wouldn’t be realistic to do it without the software,” Closs said. “It saves time and gives them more options to compare.”
IBM also funded labs at two other American universities, including the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University and the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
The Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at University College in Dublin, Ireland, was the fourth lab to be funded by IBM. Kaplan said the company might expand its partnerships in the future.
The universities’ labs are nearly identical and will be connected through a shared network, she said.
Although some Northwestern faculty members have heard of the partnership between IBM and the other universities, there have not been any plans to join, said Peggy King, director of media relations at the Kellogg School of Management.
Kellogg offers a program in supply-chain management but does not have any corporate sponsorships, she said. Most of Kellogg’s labs come from alumni donations, according to King.
Kaplan said the sponsorship is not just about giving out donations. It also provides training and assistance for faculty members and students enrolled in the schools, she said.
The sponsorships give students more opportunities to find jobs in supply-chain management, which is one of the focuses of IBM, Kaplan said. The company recruits from heavily from each of the schools with sponsored labs.
Kaplan said the shift to supply-chain management began a few years ago as an attempt to differentiate IBM from other companies. She said the change saved the company $7 billion last year.
“The idea here is that we can help schools learn more so that they can teach us,” Kaplan said. “The students and professors can come to us with better ideas and we will get better trained professionals.”
Anna Oktaviano, a second-year Kellogg student, said she thinks corporate sponsorships at NU would be a good idea because they bring benefits to students and teachers as well as the company.
Oktaviano’s high school and college had corporate sponsorships from companies such as Dell, and the labs were very up-to-date and useful, she said.
“There are a lot of scholarships that companies will give out (to individual people),” she said. “But everyone can have access to the labs, equipment or facilities.”
