Experiential learning unlocks students’, employers’ potential

Peter Daly was a fourth-year student at UW–Madison in fall 2020 when he took the first Computer Sciences capstone course taught by Amber Field.

Field had selected Daly and 25 other CS majors to participate in this pilot experiential learning class, pairing companies with self-selected teams of students to work on real-world problems.

Daly found himself on a team working with Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia. He admits that, not knowing how technically advanced the company was at the time, “it wasn’t a company that was necessarily on my radar as a place to work.” As a graduating senior, however, he paid close attention to his Capital One mentors, who “had nothing but praise for the company and then generously offered to act as a referral for my application. I ended up applying and I got the offer, and the rest is history.”

Now, Daly, who continues as a Senior Associate Software Engineer at Capital One, serves as a mentor for current CS capstone students. “The fact that the university is offering what is essentially an internship to these students is great,” says Daly.

Experiential learning at UW–Madison, whether a practicum, an internship, or a capstone course, is more than a classroom concept. It’s a transformative approach that prepares students for the professional world and provides employers with fresh insights. Hands-on learning experiences found in nearly every discipline on campus set up students and partner companies for success.

Here are two examples, from UW–Madison’s School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) and the Wisconsin School of Business (WSB).

Computer Sciences Capstone

Field, who now teaches the Computer Sciences capstone course twice a year, has been a software engineer and manager for her entire career at companies including IBM, Capital One, and National Geographic, and most recently as vice-president of software development at Singlewire Software.

The capstone has grown to about 100 students per semester. They work in groups directly with partner companies, from start-ups to well-known industry leaders.

A UW–Madison CS alumna herself, Field launched the class to help students prepare for the work world by building skills that employers most needed—in her case, agile software development skills.

Rohan Ayyagari, a Computer Sciences major from San Ramon, California, who took the capstone course in spring 2024, says, “With a class like this, you know right from the get-go this is how companies do it. And I’m hearing from people in the field that I should know this in the future.”

Get involved:

Employers: Find out about current opportunities to participate as an employer from UW–Madison’s Office of Business Engagement (OBE). For more information, subscribe to OBE’s email updates or follow them on X or LinkedIn.

Students: Contact your advisor or your school or college’s career services office to find out which classes provide opportunities for experiential learning.

Field structures the class to replicate the work environment as closely as possible. “We welcome into the class product management MBA students and UX Master’s students as well,” she says. These students allow the teams to be cross-functional and create better final products.

Each partner company provides a unique experience based on its own needs. Daly, of Capital One, participates in part to help ensure students learn marketable skills that they might not learn elsewhere.

“There was a moment probably three or four months into my job at Capital One where something just clicked for me,” recalls Daly. “All of a sudden, you see the vision and realize, ‘Oh, this makes sense now.’ And after I had that moment, I thought to myself, ‘If this is such a critical part of being a software engineer, why did I not learn it in school?’”

Daly adds, “For me, what I want most is for the students to have that moment click before they’re a full-time employee at a company.”

Working with Daly and Capital One, Ayyagari and his fellow students created a full stack banking application. He was attracted to the project because it would allow him to learn about the entire software development process, including front-end and back-end programming and cloud deployment.

“None of us had ever built a web app from scratch,” Ayyagari said. “It helped me understand how these apps not just come to be, but the whole process that comes with it.”

Building the application, paired with lectures on the agile development process from experienced guest speakers, gave Ayyagari “a good insight into how businesses actually work.”

Madison-based Last Lock, another capstone partner, has deep origins at UW–Madison and a commitment to experiential learning that reflects the company’s nature as a startup.

“We give students projects, resources and mentors and then just let them just try to get it done as fast as possible without getting in their way,” says Last Lock founder and CEO Jack Ryan, a UW–Madison electrical engineering and economics alumnus originally from Minnesota.

Students who work with Last Lock focus on projects that have a realistic chance to become part of the company’s product roadmap. This rare opportunity, which is highly attractive to many students in the course, illustrates the win-win nature of experiential learning. “Mentors provide a great deal of value to students through their knowledge and real-world experience,” says Ryan, “while companies have the opportunity to evaluate them as potential employees.”

Last Lock has found CS capstone students a great match for their needs—both before and after graduation. “They’ve been hiring several students pretty much every semester,” notes Field. “Not all students will get a job offer from the course, but I love it when we have students that go directly from the course to one of our partners.”

Master’s in Business Analytics Consulting Practicum

This past spring, 18 companies worked with 23 teams of Master of Science in Business Analytics students from the Wisconsin School of Business. This one-year master’s degree program attracts students from a wide variety of backgrounds, in part because it’s focused on key skills employers need.

MSBA students start their consulting practicum, which is a required course, in a three-week “consulting boot camp” led by faculty with decades of consulting experience.

Halley Jones, manager of corporate outreach for master’s programs at WSB, notes that employers “come in understanding that their role is to be a project guide and a mentor, but very quickly realize that these students have skills that are unique.”

The more than 100 students in the 2023-24 MSBA program had at least 20 distinct undergraduate backgrounds, ranging from finance and economics to computer sciences and neuroscience.

Robert Behnke, co-founder and president of Madison-based organic clothing company Fair Indigo, worked with a team of MSBA students this spring. He notes, “The project flow, the team members, the final output exceeded my expectations by a not immaterial factor.” He was impressed with their ability to “present data lingo to a non-data person” like himself, an especially useful skill in a smaller company where leaders might have varied roles and responsibilities.

Jay Page, director of experiential learning for WSB’s master’s programs, emphasizes that MSBA students bring not only technical expertise, but also essential “soft skills,” including “working effectively in teams, confidently expressing their viewpoints, becoming increasingly comfortable with presentations, and creating effective slide decks.”

Spring 2024 MSBA graduate Luqman Godil worked on a team with Madison-based Fetch. Fetch (formerly Fetch Rewards) wanted to understand why Spanish-speaking users used their app differently than English-speaking users. Given access to data and a wide degree of latitude, Godil’s team, in his words, “solved a very big problem for them… getting those insights [into] what exactly is happening, and then presenting it in a form that is helpful for them to take action, and then constantly getting feedback from them.”

Godil appreciated being presented with “real challenges that you would face in the workplace,” he said. He also valued the networking opportunity, as did Fetch; in fact, Godil recently started there as a permanent employee.

Why does it work so well?

Justin Hines is director of corporate relations at the School of Computer, Data, and Information Sciences (CDIS), home of the Computer Sciences department. He reminds employers, “We’re not just solving your problems and walking away.”

The best partners, according to Hines, are those that understand “the product that they get at the end isn’t necessarily going to solve the future of their organization, but it is going to give them new insights, provide real-world experience to the students and help them start to identify if these students are hirable.”

Industry partners across the board are happy at the end of the semester after working closely with students, Field says.

“Here you’ve got almost four months, longer than a regular internship over the summer to evaluate various students,” giving employers far more information about the students’ potential as employees, Field says.

She adds that she’s “always impressed by the quality work that the students put out at the end…. They care deeply about doing something meaningful for their partners.”

The experience is invaluable for students. MSBA alumnus Godil says, “These kinds of projects are really helpful because they get you that opportunity to showcase your ability and then it gives you the confidence that, OK, you have it in you” to be successful.

Ayyagari’s experience convinced him that “anyone who wants to go into CS should take the [capstone] class.”

What’s next?

The future of experiential learning is bright. According to Jones, WSB Dean Vallabh Sambamurthy has said that by 2028, all business undergraduates will complete at least one experiential learning experience as part of their education.

Field says regarding the CS capstone, “I am actively trying to scale this course and eventually would like every single comp sci major to be able to take it.”

“It really does not matter whether they [the partner] are in person or not,” adds Field. “We make it work for both.” Capital One has always participated remotely, as have companies such as Schneider in the Green Bay area, GE HealthCare in the Milwaukee area, and startups in California and elsewhere.

More Information

Find out about current opportunities for experiential learning from UW–Madison’s Office of Business Engagement (OBE).