Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

I have not seen data which supports your statement that student projects are not successful (but nor have I seen data which supports that they are), but I can think of a few possible reasons why this may be:

1) students do not have the background information someone within a company would have. They have not worked in the industry before, so don't know the subtleties of the market.

2) students do not have the maturity yet. This shows in how they get data (cut and paste from other sources without understanding what is really being said, etc.), the areas they focus their efforts on (making report look good rather than content, etc.).

3) students do not have "skin in the game". Students write their report and get their grade, and they are done. Someone working in the industry has to implement what they report on and will be around to be judged based on the actual results.

Of course, these reasons don't apply to all students or all projects, but I suspect would be common. Thinking back, my own experiences hold some of these reasons as true. I think back to one of my early projects I had in my career (after getting my MBA), and have to laugh at how inefficient and ineffective I was then. I would do stuff very differently (and much more effectively) now.