Industrial visits, often referred to as industry visits for students, are an essential part of the academic curriculum in most of the graduate and Post-graduate courses. Being a part of interactive learning, such educational visits give students major exposure to real working environments along with a practical perspective of a theoretical concept relevant to their domain. The objective of industrial visits is to bridge the widening gap between theoretical learning and practical exposure by giving students first-hand exposure to identify the inputs and outputs of different business operations and processes performed at the workplace.

Intending to go beyond classroom learning, industrial visits for college students contribute a lot in holistic student development by letting students learn about the current trends in the market, the future scenario of the industry, and the new technologies that are being applied in the industry.

Given below are a few significant benefits of industrial tours:

Opportunity to interact with Industry Experts: Industrial visits provide students with a chance to meet industry leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and corporations who share their wisdom, learning, and experiences. These interactions are useful to students in their careers and help them in developing leadership qualities, and management skills while learning about the industry. Industry interaction is also helpful in updating the curriculum when there are significant changes in prevalent technologies; also, the faculty members get to know about the industry’s latest trends.

Learning experience: What is an industrial visit? It’s an opportunity for students to see and experience real workstations, plants, machines, systems, assembly lines, and interact with highly trained and experienced personnel. This practical learning experience is necessary for students who have to date studied theory only and are unaware of a real production plant’s daily workings. The objectives of an industrial visit include learning about company policies in terms of production, quality, and service management and acquainting themselves with the working of instruments during the course curriculum.

Enhanced employability and PPOs: Industrial visits play a crucial role in increasing networking opportunities while building good relationships with companies. For students, such trips open many doors for corporate training and internships, which in turn increase the student’s employability. Oftentimes, many students are offered PPOs as a result of fruitful interaction between the company’s HR and students.

Management Lessons: During the industrial visits, the students get an opportunity to experience how professionals live, and learn about various management concepts like Just in Time or Lean manufacturing and how they are put into action. It is not easy to manage hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers at the same time and meet the stringent quality norms and production targets of the company. How managers, production engineers, and employees work in tandem to achieve a common target is a management lesson in itself. And therefore, such exposure during the industrial visit is quite beneficial for MBA students.

Interpersonal skills enhancement: Industrial trips help students to enhance their interpersonal, communication skills, and teamwork abilities. These visits have, time and again, proved to be an excellent platform for networking as the students interact and connect with the corporates via official social media platforms like Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter. These educational/industrial trips also help the students identify their learning towards a branch and decide their future work areas like marketing, finance, operations, IT, HR, etc.

Day off from the usual melancholy: Finally, these industrial visits provide the students with a much-needed break from the usual melancholic theory classes, and students get a chance to engage in fun learning. The students get an opportunity to learn something outside the four walls of their college.

The purpose of an industrial visit is not just about giving students a break from their regular academic routine, but also to ensure that they gain practical insights and develop an understanding of real-world industry dynamics.

Industrial visits are usually the first point of interaction between a student and a live working industry. The students learn about the latest technology trends and make up their minds about their future jobs or areas of interest. However, students and teachers both should take this seriously and utilize this industrial visit for learning and enhancing their skills. This trip should not be wasted in idle fun and jokes and should be used for team bonding and learning along with a bit of fun.

Annamacharya University understands the significant importance of field trips and excursions for a student’s overall development. To supplement classroom learning with practical exposure, Annamacharya University organises various industrial visits so that students can gain practical insights into industry operations and be ready for the outside world.