Student Guide
Everything you need to succeed in your assigned simulation on Future Work Academy. The flagship scenario puts you in the CEO seat at Apex Manufacturing for The Future of Work — the same workflow applies to every simulation on the platform. Bookmark this page for quick reference throughout the course.
Your Privacy Matters
This simulation is designed with student privacy as a priority. Your instructor may enable Privacy Mode for your class, which means:
- You enroll anonymously via Replit authentication — no school email verification is required.
- Your phone number is never collected, and SMS/email notifications are disabled.
- You are identified by a pseudonymous ID (e.g.,
Student_abc12345) within the platform. - Your instructor maintains a separate offline roster to map pseudonyms to real identities.
- AI essay evaluation receives only your written responses — no personally identifiable information is shared with the AI.
If your class is not using Privacy Mode, you will be asked to verify a .edu email address during enrollment. This helps your instructor match you with the class roster. Your data is handled securely and is never shared with third parties.
Log In with Replit
Click the Sign In button on the landing page. You will be redirected to Replit's secure authentication page. If you already have a Replit account, sign in with your existing credentials. If not, create a free account using any email address. The platform uses Replit's OIDC authentication, so there is no separate password to remember.
Find Your Class
After signing in for the first time, you will be prompted to join your class. There are two ways to do this:
- Direct invite link — Your instructor may share a link that takes you straight to the platform and automatically connects you to the right class. Just click the link, sign in, and you are in.
- Enrollment code — Alternatively, your instructor may give you a code (e.g., BUS501F26). Enter the code exactly as given (codes are case-sensitive) and click "Join."
Either way, you will be enrolled in the class. Your instructor will then assign you to a team — once assigned, you can begin exploring the simulation.
Understand Your Role
You are stepping into the shoes of a CEO at Apex Manufacturing, a mid-sized industrial company at a crossroads. The board has tasked you with navigating a sweeping AI and automation transformation while preserving employee morale, managing union dynamics, and maintaining financial health. Every decision you make over the next 8 weeks will shape the company's future — and your final score.
Each of the 8 simulation weeks follows the same three-step rhythm. Complete every step before advancing to the next week.
Intelligence Briefing
Start each week by reading the scenario narrative that sets the stage. Then listen to stakeholder voicemails — phone messages from characters at Apex Manufacturing who are affected by the week's events. Finally, review the intel articles: curated industry news, market data, and analyst reports that provide evidence you can reference in your decisions. Treat the briefing like a CEO's morning reading — the more carefully you absorb it, the stronger your essays will be.
Make Decisions
Each week presents two strategic decisions. For each one, you will select an option (A, B, C, or sometimes D) and then write a substantive essay explanation justifying your reasoning. Simply picking an option is not enough — the essay is where you demonstrate critical thinking. Refer to specific data from the briefing, consider multiple stakeholders, and weigh short-term gains against long-term consequences.
View Results
After submitting both decisions, view the Week Results screen. Here you will see AI-graded feedback on your essay quality, changes to your company metrics (revenue, morale, union sentiment, and more), and a narrative summary of the consequences your choices created. Pay close attention to the feedback — it highlights what you did well and where you can improve for the next week.
Your CEO Dashboard is the command center for the entire simulation. It surfaces the information you need at a glance.
Company Metrics
Revenue
Total company revenue — aim for steady growth
Employees
Headcount, affected by hiring, layoffs, and attrition
Morale
Employee sentiment — low morale triggers costly turnover
Union Sentiment
Risk of unionization — exceeding 75% triggers collective bargaining
Debt
Outstanding liabilities from automation financing
Automation Level
Percentage of operations automated with AI and robotics
Quick Actions
The dashboard provides shortcut buttons to jump directly to your current week's briefing, decisions, and results. Use the sidebar or the on-screen cards to navigate without hunting through menus.
Progress Tracking
A progress indicator shows which week you are on (e.g., "Week 3 of 8") and whether you have completed the briefing, decisions, and results review for the current week. Green checkmarks appear as you finish each step.
Decisions are the core of the simulation. Here is what you need to know about how they work.
Two Decisions Per Week
Every simulation week presents exactly two strategic decisions. Both must be completed before you can advance to the following week.
Multiple-Choice Options
Each decision offers options labeled A, B, and C (some weeks include a fourth option, D). Read every option carefully before choosing — some are deliberately designed to look appealing but carry hidden risks.
Essay Explanations Required
After selecting your option, you must write an essay explaining your reasoning. This is not optional. The essay is evaluated by AI on evidence quality, coherence, trade-off analysis, and stakeholder consideration.
Attach Supporting Visualizations
Attach up to 5 charts, tables, or visualizations (PNG, JPEG, WebP) to strengthen your analysis. Export from Excel, Google Sheets, or any tool. The AI evaluator scores your visualizations alongside your essay — a well-chosen chart that illustrates a key data point is treated the same as citing statistics in your text.
Difficulty Levels Affect Scoring
Decisions have varying difficulty levels that influence how aggressively your company metrics shift. Higher-difficulty decisions carry greater risk — and greater scoring upside if you handle them well.
When you face an especially tough decision, you can call on one of nine world-class advisors for strategic guidance. Think of it like a "phone a friend" lifeline — powerful, but limited.
Strategy Consultants
Big-picture thinkers who help you frame problems and evaluate trade-offs at the executive level.
Industry Experts
Specialists in manufacturing, automation, and labor relations who offer domain-specific insight.
Thought Leaders
Visionaries who challenge conventional thinking and introduce innovative frameworks for change.
3 Credits for the Entire Simulation
You receive exactly three advisor credits that span all 8 weeks. Once you use a credit, it is gone — so deploy them strategically. Each consultation generates AI-powered guidance tailored to your current company state, the specific decision at hand, and the advisor's area of expertise. Save your credits for the weeks where the stakes (and difficulty) are highest.
Your performance is measured on two dimensions that combine to determine your leaderboard ranking.
Financial Score
- Revenue growth over the 8-week period
- Cost management and debt control
- Return on investment from automation spending
Cultural Score
- Employee morale and engagement levels
- Union relations and avoidance of forced bargaining
- Workforce adaptability and reskilling success
Essay Evaluation Criteria
Every essay you submit is initially evaluated by an AI grading engine across four dimensions:
Evidence Quality
Did you reference specific data, metrics, or intel from the briefing?
Reasoning Coherence
Is your argument logical, well-structured, and internally consistent?
Trade-off Analysis
Did you acknowledge and weigh competing priorities and risks?
Stakeholder Consideration
Did you account for the perspectives of employees, management, unions, and the board?
Scoring Bands (per criterion, 25 points each):
Important: Human grading will always be performed on all AI-graded submissions. AI scores provide immediate feedback to help you improve week over week, but your instructor reviews and may adjust final grades to ensure fairness and accuracy.
How the AI Evaluator Works
When you submit a decision, the AI reads your entire essay and evaluates it against the four criteria above. Here is what happens behind the scenes, and how to use it to your advantage:
1. Your Essay Is Read in Full Context
The AI evaluator sees your essay alongside the week's briefing, the decision options, and the company's current state. It knows what data was available to you, which means it can tell whether you used the intel articles or ignored them. Referencing specific data points from the briefing (source codes like AIM, APX, or WFT) signals strong evidence quality.
2. Charts and Visualizations Are Evaluated by AI Vision
When you attach charts or visualizations, the system activates an advanced AI model with vision capabilities. It reads your charts — labels, axes, trends, data points — and evaluates how well they support your written argument. A well-chosen chart that illustrates a key trend or comparison is treated as strong evidence, equivalent to citing statistics directly in your essay.
3. What Makes a Visualization Score Well
The AI evaluates whether your charts are properly labeled, clear, and meaningful in context. A bar chart showing projected revenue under your chosen strategy scores higher than a generic screenshot. The key is relevance: attach charts that directly support a specific claim in your essay, then reference them in your writing.
4. How to Maximize Your Essay Score
Top-scoring responses typically do three things: (a) cite specific data from the Intel articles using source codes, (b) attach 1-3 focused charts that illustrate the financial or cultural impact of their decision, and (c) explicitly reference those charts in the essay text (e.g., "As shown in the attached revenue projection..."). The combination of written evidence and visual data consistently earns scores in the Excellent range.
After you submit a decision essay, Akme may follow up with a short defense round to confirm you genuinely understand your own argument. Your final score for the decision is a Blended Score — a weighted combination of your essay and your challenge response.
3 Personalized Defense Questions
Akme reads your submitted essay and generates three pointed follow-up questions tailored to the specific claims, evidence, and trade-offs you wrote about. These are not generic prompts — they reference what you actually argued. You answer all three within a short timed window.
Blended Score (Default 70 / 30)
Your final grade for the decision = Essay (70%) + Challenge (30%) by default. Your instructor can adjust this weighting per simulation, but the platform default is 70/30. A strong essay backed by a solid defense earns the highest blended scores.
If you can't defend it, you didn't earn it. Vague or off-topic answers, an expired timer, or skipped questions will pull your blended score down and may flag your submission for instructor review. Read the briefing, write your own essay, and you will have no trouble defending it.
The automated Hot Seat is a self-paced exercise where Akme role-plays a stakeholder — a board member, a lead investor, or a union representative — and grills you on your weekly decisions. It runs entirely inside the platform, on your schedule, with Akme generating both the questions and the scoring. No instructor needs to be present.
Stakeholder Personas
Akme adopts a specific persona (board, investor, or union) and asks questions from that point of view. Tone, priorities, and pushback all shift with the persona.
Per-Question Timer
Each question has its own visible countdown. If time runs out before you submit, that question is recorded as a timeout and the next one begins automatically.
Akme-Generated Scoring
After the final question, Akme produces a session score out of 100 plus written feedback explaining what landed and what fell flat.
Your instructor sets the simulation's difficulty level before the course begins. The level changes how strict the AI evaluator is and how many criteria your essays are scored against — but the same total of 100 points is always available. This is why two students writing equally good essays in different courses may see different scores.
Introductory
Undergraduate audience. 2 criteria × 50 pts. Encouraging tone, partial credit awarded generously. Typical scores land in the 70–85 range when effort is clear.
Standard
Working professional audience. 3 criteria × ~33 pts. Balanced and constructive — solid reasoning with explicit trade-offs is expected. Typical scores land in the 60–75 range.
Advanced
MBA / graduate audience. 4 criteria × 25 pts. Rigorous, professional standards. Sophisticated multi-stakeholder analysis required. Typical scores land in the 50–70 range.
Difficulty is applied uniformly to everyone in your class, so it does not advantage or disadvantage any individual student — it just calibrates the rigor to your program level.
Beyond the essay and challenge, the platform tracks engagement — how thoroughly you read the briefing materials. Doing the prep work earns a multiplier on your earned essay score, up to roughly 1.5× at the top end.
- Intel articles — fully reading every article (with the timed-read gate satisfied) is the largest contributor to the bonus.
- Voicemails — listening to all stakeholder voicemails contributes a smaller share.
- Composition effort — writing your essay over time, rather than pasting a finished draft in one shot, contributes a smaller share.
Practical translation: skipping the briefing typically costs students 10–20 points on a decision compared to fully engaging. It is the single highest-leverage habit in the simulation.
Apex Manufacturing is populated by 17 richly detailed stakeholders — from the ambitious CFO to the skeptical union steward. Understanding who they are and what they care about is essential to making decisions that succeed.
How to Access Profiles
Whenever a stakeholder's name appears in a briefing narrative, voicemail, or decision prompt, it is rendered as a clickable link. Click the name to open a modal with the stakeholder's full biography, department, tenure, and personality traits.
Key Traits to Watch
- Influence — how much sway they hold over outcomes
- Hostility — their resistance to change and AI adoption
- Flexibility — willingness to compromise or adapt
- Risk Tolerance — appetite for bold, high-stakes moves
Stakeholder reactions are not decorative — they actively influence how your decisions play out. A decision that ignores a high-influence stakeholder's concerns may trigger metric penalties, while one that aligns with key allies can amplify positive outcomes.
Read Every Intel Article
Intel articles are not filler — reading them earns bonus engagement points and gives you concrete evidence to cite in your essays.
Listen to Every Voicemail
Voicemails reveal stakeholder emotions and hidden agendas that do not appear in the written narrative. They are short — do not skip them.
Consider Multiple Stakeholders
Top-scoring essays explicitly address the perspectives of at least two or three stakeholder groups (e.g., employees, management, the board).
Balance Short-Term and Long-Term
Quick wins often create long-term problems. The grading engine rewards essays that acknowledge and weigh temporal trade-offs.
Reference Specific Data
Generic reasoning scores lower than arguments grounded in specific numbers, trends, or scenarios from the briefing materials.
Think Like a CEO
The simulation rewards strategic thinking — not just correct answers. Show that you understand the interconnected nature of financial, cultural, and operational decisions.
Academic Questions
Questions about grading, deadlines, or course requirements should be directed to your professor or teaching assistant. They have full visibility into your simulation progress.
Technical Issues
If you encounter a bug, loading error, or account problem, email support@futureworkacademy.com with a description of the issue and a screenshot if possible.
Platform Questions
For general "how do I...?" questions about the simulation, use the AI Q&A Assistant available within the app. It can answer most questions about navigation, features, and gameplay instantly.