Work-integrated Learning (WIL) seeks to bridge the gap between 'scholastic' training and work. This study explores the ironic fact that the WIL discourse remains formed by the idea of "academia" and the "real world," an idea that in decisive ways creates this gap. A genealogical discourse analysis of how this idea operates in 79 present and past official documents promoting the Cooperative Education (Co-op) WIL model is used to explore this ironic fact. Two accounts of this idea are dominant in both present and past documents -- "the deficit account," which merely creates the stated gap, and "the collaborative account," which both creates and bridges this gap. I emphasise that the Co-op and other standard WIL models embody and (re)produce the stated idea because they locate 'scholastic' training outside the 'real world'. This separation dates back to scholè -- the ancient Greek school that aimed to disconnect 'school' from 'work'. Because WIL has the opposite aim, I argue that this separation is in fact counterproductive for WIL. Finally, I argue that locating WIL in a "third place" outside university and working life can be a way of avoiding the separation that (re)produces the idea of "academia" and the "real world."