Here is a challenge for you: name something you did in your education which felt like you were genuinely applying your learning to a real world scenario. Hopefully you are fortunate enough to think of one or more examples, but most of us will not. We learn in school, college, university, and then we work in the "real" world, but they are separate entities.
There are internships as part of courses, projects with companies or NGOs, and numerous other initiatives to try to de-silo the learning and get it out into the community around us in a symbiotic way. Many of these, however, can feel a bit scripted or too formulaic. Are we really in the real world? Will this company actually maybe do something with our findings or suggestions?
