The Impact Lab :: University of Waikato

You’re almost finished with your degree – what next?

If you’re looking for an opportunity to utilise your new-found skills while gaining a breadth of experience outside of your traditional field of study, The Impact Lab is for you.

What is The Impact Lab?

The Impact Lab facilitates real-world experiences of multidisciplinary teams by providing a forum for pan-divisional collaboration between students. You will be able to work on real sustainability issues faced by our surrounding communities, developing solutions in a team with a wide range of qualifications and majors.

These challenges may be internal to organisations that cannot be solved due to a lack of time or resources, or beyond the scope of their industry but still have an impact on their organisation, for example, social, societal, environmental, logistical, political, technical, or artistic issues.

The Impact Lab is your chance to shine and show practical application of the skills you have learned to date in a much broader context.

Benefits to joining The Impact Lab

Graduate roles can be highly competitive. Successful completion of The Impact Lab demonstrates to future employers that you possess the skills to work effectively in a team and achieve directed outcomes.

The Impact Lab offers a series of workshops that enhance your work-readiness and develop essential soft skills—key ingredients for success in your first post-tertiary role. Throughout the programme, students receive guidance and support from both University and organisational mentors.

Completing The Impact Lab as your WIL paper

You are required to complete 115 points above 100 level before enrolling in the paper, unless you obtain divisional approval. You are also committing to around 150 hours of work (personal assessments, working towards outcomes for your project team, group meetings, etc) throughout the trimester, some of which will occur during the teaching recess.

Enrolment into your division’s The Impact Lab paper by your division’s enrolments team is at the discretion of the divisional programme team and the convenor of The Impact Lab.

Testimonial

Oak Archvarin

Throughout my four year degree, I can say with certainty that The Impact Lab was the one paper that provided an invaluable experience and allowed me to have realistic expectations when leaving the University and entering the workforce.

The assignments focussed on the hiring process and gave some insight into how you can stand out from other candidates. We focussed on creating CVs, cover letters and how to curate our personal LinkedIn pages. We worked closely with an assigned team - everyone involved were passionate about our project and came from different subject areas within the University. This was a fantastic experience as we were able to provide valuable input from a vast array of perspectives when it came to communicating with our clients about their projects.

When I finished this paper, I felt as though I had been set up and prepared to enter the 'real world,' as we had an excellent hands-on experience. This was a great indicator of what was to be expected, how crucial your online identity is and, most importantly, how to conduct myself in order to display desirable qualities to potential employers.

Oak Archvarin, Bachelor of Management Studies with Honours