Humber students are playing a valuable role in shaping the development of a new hub centred around student employability and the Humber Learning Outcomes (HLOs).  

In conjunction with the ‘I AM READY’ campaign, Humber students came together to brainstorm ideas on how they can best implement, collect and highlight the career-related skills they’ve acquired at Humber that align with the HLOs. The HLOs equip Humber graduates with the skills, mindsets and values to succeed in the future of work and life and help define the unique qualities of the graduates through Humber’s polytechnic model of education.  

The hub will support the development of ‘Career-Ready Graduates,’ aiding students in tracking and reflecting on their HLOs.

Shruti Parakkal is a Business Insights and Analytics student at the Humber International Graduate School (IGS) who helped with the development of the hub. She got involved last year by taking part in a hackathon to design the hub that her team wound up winning.

Parakkal enjoyed the experience and wanted to continue to be a part of the hub’s evolution, so she joined the hub’s Student Project Team. Parakkal served as the project lead and worked with a diverse team of students. The team included:  

Sivana D’costa – Research Analyst (Humber IGS)

Rita-Maria Oladokun – Information Technology Solutions (North Campus)

Ozi Cantos – Bachelor of Commerce – Digital Business Management (Lakeshore Campus)

Obi Sultani – Media Communications (North Campus)

Mili Sachdeva – Business Insights and Analytics (Humber IGS)

Over five weeks, the team helped with the design of the hub by conducting stakeholder engagement sessions, feature design sessions, user persona workshops and more.  

They were tasked with finding out what stakeholders want in the hub along with analyzing existing tools at Humber for their strengths and weaknesses. The team of students put together a list of approximately 40 functions they want the hub to feature along with more that aren’t essential but would be nice to add. Eventually, they presented their results to the committee overseeing the hub’s development.

Parakkal said, as a student, she wants a platform that’s easy to use with all the information in one place. She emphasized the importance of simplicity, stating that if a platform is overly complex or requires too much effort, it might not provide students with a good experience.  

"Consideration of stakeholders is essential when building a tool," emphasized Parakkal. "Incorporating their perspectives is crucial for ensuring its usefulness to them."

Tanaka Nyoni is a project manager with the hub who planned and organized the Student Design Workshop as well as the Student Project Team.  

“We want the hub to be useful for our students so, rather than coming up with something ourselves, we asked our students what would get them to use it,” said Nyoni. “We wanted it to be designed by students for students.”  

The Student Design Workshop was a one-day session at the IGS that involved about two dozen students. They were asked what the perfect tool would look like and what they would like to see in the hub, among other questions.

A pilot was carried out at the IGS that explored the existing tools Humber has. Information from that pilot and the student feedback was used in a new pilot project with Early Childhood Education students that started in May.

Parakkal said she enjoyed the opportunity to lead a team as they worked on the development of a new tool for her peers. It was a challenge at times with a short timeframe and students busy with their lives, school and jobs but used her leadership skills to have them working towards the end goal. She added that the team’s skills, accountability and ability to collaborate helped make the project a success.

As part of Building Brilliance: Our Vision to 2030 and Beyond, we are shedding the traditional constraints of higher education and reimagining a model that both adapts to and shapes the world around us. By making bold decisions around how we fundamentally operate, we can reimagine learning, forge deeper partnerships and drive impact, creating real value and progress. This story is an example of how we are building brilliance every day.