It’s been said that the first person to ever graduate from college got their degree from someone who didn’t. It’s a little reminder that perhaps all that one needs to know isn’t found in the academic halls of higher education.
College and university has become a necessity in today’s marketplace for increasing an individual’s economic opportunity. With rising costs and competitive admission standards, it’s natural to reassess what might be missing from the overall college experience. Beyond the studies in academia, here are some skills that we feel should be emphasized to a greater degree throughout colleges and universities to benefit one’s career moving forward.
Soft skills are the personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Soft skills are everything that has nothing to do with the work you’re going to do. You can always learn a new skill. But the ability to utilize people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence quotients matter so much in any organization. Even professors, often awesome subject matter specialists, aren’t proficient at emotional intelligence themselves so they are unable to model it for their students!
The school group project is significant because it allows us to experience the workplace dynamics. It’ll either be the case where work is delegated and divvied out only to then everyone come back and compile the work present in a uniformed fashion. Or it’s a situation where one person does the lion share of work and others latch onto for credit. This is why group projects are important, but we often overlook them because we’re trying to get the grade. Writing is another soft skill that is neglected. So much work is done via emails and reports that it’s a vital skill to create scannable, digestible writing that covers heavy topics in a simple manner. Additionally, colleges would fare better to teach students the ability to learn on their own. To advance in your career, you’ll quickly realize that you’re not done with learning once you’re out of school. It would be helpful for students to conceptualize what learning looks like outside of the formal academic environment.
One of the best ways to find out what soft skills you should work on is to ask those with whom you work. What will make you a better team player? This is not about improving hard skills in your field, but more so how to better improve your efficiency within the team. In a world that is becoming more and more automated, those that can bring their humanity to their jobs will bring added value. Whether it’s the skills of communication, negotiation, or persuasion, those abilities have nothing to do with your hard skills matter more than they ever have in today’s marketplace.