As a continuation of the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) held in the previous month which received feedback on the graduates profiles, the Diploma-4 (D4) Informatics Engineering Study Program (hereinafter TIF) of the State Polytechnic of Jember (POLIJE) held a series of FGDs by inviting five companies as representatives from the industry. The companies invited to the FGD were Algostudio Malang, Dafidea Jember, Ezy Industries Malang, Esolusindo Jember, and Integra Multi Solusindo Yogyakarta, all of which are engaged in software development. The FGD was opened on January 9, 2021, by Hendra Yufit Riskiawan, S. Kom., M. Cs. as the Head of Information Technology Department. He said that this series of FGDs was a follow-up activity of the Vocational Higher Education Strengthening Program (P3TV) conducted by the TIF study program of POLIJE.

The first day of FGD raised the topic of one of the lecture content that supports the competence of TIF study program graduates, namely web developers. On this occasion, each company elaborated the duties and responsibilities of a web developer, their workflow, technology stack used, and the expected qualifications of the graduates. On the second session, Representatives from TIF presented the content of web developer lectures to the industry for feedback. Then, the last session was a question and answer session catering questions from the TIF Lecturers participating in the FGD. Akhmad Syamsul Arifin, one of the invited speakers from the Dafidea Jember representatives, provided advice on the importance of updating the technology stack taught to students about web developers. He also suggested changing the Code Iginiter framework to Laravel because industrial needs have developed into that particular technology stack.

The second day of the FGD was on January 16 with a different topic of discussion, namely Mobile Programmers. The second FGD was conducted with the same discussion scheme but it focused on mobile application development competencies taught in the Mobile Application Development Workshop course in the TIF study program of POLIJE. In this second FGD, M. Rizky Kurniawan, a Senior Mobile Programmer from Ezy Industries, was invited to provide advice on the importance of teaching other comprehensive courses to support mobile programmer competencies such as: database concepts, web services, APIs, and so on.

The FGDs series lasted for approximately three hours in all sessions and were attended by almost all 16 lecturers of the TIF study program as online participants. Trismayanti Dwi Puspitasari, S. Kom., M. Cs as the head of the TIF study program of POLIJE explained that this series of FGDs about web developers and mobile programmers aimed to align with the content of lectures taught by the lecturers to suit the needs of the industry. She further explained the importance of involving representatives from the industry to provide feedback in the learning process so that graduates of the TIF study program can be appointed based on the required qualifications.

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