Course overview
Students will develop a broad knowledge and professional skills base that is essential for an impactful career in agriculture. The course addresses several graduate capability needs identified by industry. Through lectures, immersive group activities and a field trip, the course will introduce students to concepts and models for: understanding yourself and your stakeholders, effective communication and handling difficult conversations, project planning and adaptive management, evidence-based decision making, benefit-cost analysis, formulating a value proposition, end-user adoption, and critical and systems thinking. During this course, students will complete and reflect upon their 450-hour/12-week internship experiences across the program. By complementing the deep discipline knowledge gained through previous courses, this course will enable students to enhance their career readiness and ability to achieve improved agricultural outcomes across a variety of contexts and together with various stakeholders.
Course learning outcomes
- Recognise, discuss and evaluate stakeholder needs and perspectives, and demonstrate effective communication to diverse stakeholders
- Develop a comprehensive and compelling project proposal to address identified stakeholder needs and desired outcomes
- Develop and apply critical thinking, teamwork, negotiation and adaptive management skills
- Discuss key factors affecting agricultural decision making, end-user adoption as well as principles such as systems thinking
- Synthesise and interpret data and/or information from various sources to support arguments and proposed approaches, while reflecting on the quality of such sources
- Engage in self-reflection to make informed decisions about how to best work within a team, identify development needs and potential career paths