Experience-Based Learning is Important to Prepare Students for the World of Work

Bakrie University against students of the Communication Science Study Program, who are running a Public Relations campaign (photo: Yesica Sitinjak/VOI)

JAKARTA - Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded the number of unemployed higher education graduates, ranging from diploma to doctoral, reaching more than 1.01 million people in February 2025. This number is the highest in the last four years.

With this fact, it becomes a challenge for each university to prepare its students to be able to compete in the world of work after graduation.

In preparing these students, universities must strengthen learning not only focusing on theory, but also on practical experience that is relevant to industry needs.

As was done by Bakrie University for students of the Communication Science Study Program, which carried out a Public Relations campaign entitled #KembaliKeDapur. This campaign is part of the Final Semester Exam (UAS) project.

The campaign is designed to train students' readiness to face the world of work through experiential learning, as well as invite the younger generation to reinterpret the kitchen as a space for togetherness and preservation of family traditions.

The UAS project in this campaign is integrated, combining three courses, namely Media Relations, Visual Content Production, and Cyber PR. Students are challenged to work collaboratively, from formulating communication strategies to planning campaign execution.

"From the beginning of the lecture, we built a relevant umbrella campaign for the three courses so that students do not study the theory separately," said the lecturer for the course, Octaviniant Aspary, in Kuningan, Jakarta, on Saturday, December 20, 2025.

"This trains them to think strategically and be able to run campaigns in an integrated manner, from planning to evaluation, as is the practice in the professional world," he added.

In the implementation of this UAS project, guidance is also provided by industry practitioners, namely from the Executive Account Director of VERO Agency, Diah Andrini Dewi. Diah said that through this project, students can get hands-on experience designing campaigns, which is useful for the competition in the world of work later.

"The campaign is not only required to be interesting, but also relevant to the context, understand the target audience, and have measurable goals. Through this project, students learn to design campaigns in an integrated and insight-based manner, in accordance with the demands of practice in the industry," continued Diah.

The hope of the Communication Science Study Program of Bakrie University related to this project is that it can be further developed and not stop as an academic task only. Collaboration with industry practitioners is expected to continue to be strengthened to open more real learning spaces for students.