What are we supposed to learn in college?
The types of positions in the job market are changing more quickly than ever. Credit: AP / Tony Overman
Sixty-five percent of children entering primary schools today worldwide will eventually work in jobs that don’t exist yet, according to the World Economic Forum.
That also means that students currently in college will enter a work environment that will barely be recognizable when they reach their peak earning potential age in their late 30s. The types of positions in the job market are changing more quickly than ever, and we need to learn how to prepare students for jobs that don’t yet exist. In just the last 10 years, jobs like app developers, big data analysts and cloud computing specialists have come on the scene. Some of the new training for jobs yet to be created will include more than skills-based preparation.
Between 2009 and 2015, employment nationally in STEM careers — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — grew by 817,260 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That sounds promising if you’re a student looking to go into STEM.
While there’s no doubt that STEM students will have a leg up in some technical skills needed in the new job market, not all of the skills of the future can be taught in school because we don’t yet know what they will be. How can we bridge that gap? By emphasizing critical thinking.
If this sounds like another front in the old academic battle between a liberal arts-based college education and a career-focused college education, that’s because it is. Traditional liberal arts degrees were not designed to neatly funnel students into specific occupations.
Rather, they were designed to give students strong foundations in sciences, mathematics, social sciences, humanities and arts. At the core of this form of education is the ability to apply what you learn in one subject to another. That would be an asset in a changing job environment. Universities should build STEM curricula around this same belief.
If universities create a dual approach to STEM education, where students get a technical-skills and formula-based education integrated with a liberal arts education, they’ll develop the critical thinking and communication skills to apply their knowledge to any job. And many well-known liberal arts majors went on to careers that had little to do with their course of study. Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and GOP presidential candidate, graduated with a double major in medieval history and philosophy. Susan Wojcicki, the chief executive of YouTube, was a double major in history and literature.
As a liberal arts student, I’m not at an advantage to secure a job after graduation. Recent liberal arts graduates, those between the ages of 22 and 27, are 2 to 3 times more likely to be underemployed than STEM majors, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There isn’t a perfect degree that will prepare students for all points in their careers. But a more well-rounded approach to college can benefit STEM students’ job prospects long-term.
Most universities require that students take some general education curricula. To enhance career preparatory degrees and technically focused programs, universities can ensure students take courses such as philosophy and literature in which the questioning of principles, rather than following formulas, is the status quo. At Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering, students complete a bachelor of arts, rather than a bachelor of science degree. This leads engineering students to take courses like international study.
No bachelor’s degree guarantees a job, and college costs continue to increase. It’s understandable that some students want to be taught what they need for a specific job, rather than take courses that won’t directly apply to their daily lives or careers. But it’s the courses students take in subjects they won’t use on a daily basis, like the humanities, that will increase their ability to analyze and apply ideas to unrelated topics. And that may help students secure one of those jobs that hasn’t even been created yet.
Melissa Holzberg is an intern with Newsday Opinion.
