What is the on-campus experience? Engineering student study and work

Accreditation for off-campus engineering programmes has proven to be problematic In Australia, off-campus programmes are compelled to contain mandatory residential sessions so that off-campus students can have an 'on-campus experience'. This paper explores the nature of modern on-campus undergraduate engineering study, and finds that it now typically involves at least part-time employment and has more in common with off-campus study than the on-campus experience enjoyed by most of the current institutional (education and professional) administrators when they completed their undergraduate studies. Rather than ignore student term-time work, engineering programmes should use it to enhance the development of desirable graduate attributes.