Computer Science students from the Sabaragamuwa University meet IT Industry

SLASSCOM (Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies) facilitated an industrial visit for the final year Computer Science undergraduate students from the University of Sabaragamuwa. This is the first industry visit to the IT industry for students following the BSc degree in Computing and Information Systems degree at the University of Sabaragamuwa. The students visited some of the leading IT companies namely IFS, Virtusa and Pearson during their visit. The tour was organised at the request made by the University.

Final year under graduate students following the BSc degree in Computing and Information Systems degree at the University of Sabaragamuwa at IFS

The main objective of this tour was to provide students with the opportunity to meet IT industry professionals and engage in a knowledge sharing session while getting an orientation to the available career options within the industry. SLASSCOM encourages industry visits as it provides mutual benefit to both the students and the companies visited. The students had an opportunity to discuss their final year projects and placement opportunities with industry professionals during the sessions.

Sixty students including five senior lecturers were able to witness the working environments of the companies visited. They were also guided in CV reviews, interview preparation, and career selection during the sessions. This initiative comes under the SLASSCOM Capacity Forum with its primary focus on initiatives to expand the Sri Lankan IT and BPO talent pool to be globally competitive.

All SLASSCOM’s capacity building initiatives are geared towards driving Sri Lanka to reach our national goal of becoming the number one industry to lead Sri Lanka to the knowledge economy while achieving the target of US$1 billion in revenue and employment to over 100,000 by 2015.  “We were delighted to facilitate an industry awareness tour for the first batch of Computer Science students of the University of Sabaragamuwa. We have many programs lined up to help these students and introduce them to the opportunities available within the IT/ BPO industry. It is important that the students are aware of the knowledge and skill set required to find employment within the IT industry. We provide these tours as the interaction with industry professionals provide the platform to bridge this gap,” said SLASSCOM Director Nalina Wijesundera and head of the Capacity Forum regarding this visit.

One of the students commented, “It was a very friendly and interactive visit. We received a good idea about recruitment process of several companies as well as what they expect from us. We learned about the trends of the current job market.” Another student stated that “we learnt more about what we have to improve further before moving to the IT industry.”