The GET immersion experience: A new model for leveraging the synergies between industry and academia

This article describes a new and innovative open co-op program for MIS/IS students. The program, Global Enterprise Technology Immersion Experience (GET IE), has a global enterprise focus that is integrated with hands-on experiential work-based learning to provide a context in which students are stimulated to utilize their classroom knowledge. The program includes a two-semester internship component that can be seamlessly incorporated with an existing MIS curriculum. The internship's unique pedagogical innovation is to deliver academic coursework on global enterprise technology to the students just in time-that is, while they are participating in an extended internship. The program, in effect, creates a domain-specific, next generation co-op program that complements traditional information systems curricula with a skillset that is required for creating and running very large global enterprise applications. The guiding GET consortium consists of four universities and a number of large companies, and the consortium is open to future expansion. The continued growth of the consortium would enrich student choices and foster cross-fertilization of curriculum activities.