Is Leadership The Answer?
“Who are we looking for? Bachelors, Masters and PhD students who are studying Computer Science (or related subject).” “Anyone with strength in data and analytics, you can apply,” explained one of the Facebook representatives. “But if you have coding experience, it’s a big plus.” “When you join us,” added another presenter, “you get involved in every change in the world.” Scenes like this augur well for college students studying high- tech subjects, as well as current employees skilled in such fields. But does it also mean that those of us who do not possess such skills are doomed to an economically inferior future? In a roboticized world, will we, unlike the students recruited at the session that day, be shut out from our chance to change the world? As it turns out, not necessarily. According to a 2016 survey of employers, the skill cited as most desirable in recent college graduates is the very human quality of “leadership.” More than 80 percent of respondents said they looked for evidence of leadership on candidates’ résumés, followed by “ability to work in a team” at nearly 79 percent. These are both social skills that people develop through real-world interactions with others. They are also, until someone instills a computer with the commanding pres — ence of Winston Churchill or the coalition-building skills of James Madison, not vulnerable to automation. Written communication and problem solving — skills more commonly attributed to a liberal arts education than a purely technical one — clocked in next at 70 percent. Curiously, technical skills ranked in the middle of the survey, below strong work ethic or initiative.”(Aoun, 2017)
Many students who do not have STEM degrees fear jobs will begin vanishing. However this isn’t the case. Every company needs leaders, dreamers, and collaborators making all the technical parts fit together. A philosophy major may think of a solution in a totally different way than an engineering major who may only consider the technical aspects. A liberal arts degree gets students to think, and also articulate what they believe.
This is important because like the except above states, not all is lost for non-STEM majors. There may be light at the end of the tunnel after all, even as our worlds get increasingly more technical.
We need to stop acting like those who chose non technical degrees that it wasn’t that they couldn’t cut it as engineers but because they found a passion and they developed it. Employers like this because it shows what students will work hard. Which according to the excerpt above is more important than technical skills.
Many people may blow off those stats as things recruiters just say, but have you ever worked on a project where they’re wasn’t a leader to step up and offer ideas, or to bring the group together and find a solution?
It was more difficult wasn’t it?
We need all types of backgrounds in business and our global community, because the more viewpoints we have to more ideas bloom into creations.
Steve Jobs wasn’t a programmer, he was an idea man. He developed Apple without coding, he left that to friend Steve Woziak.
At some point programs will be able to solve software problems, displacing the computer programmer like the factory worker of years past. I believe this will spawn a new job like the ancient philosophers of Greece, we will need idea people and leaders at that, to show the robots what to program and what they have dreamed up.
Aoun, J. (2017). Robot-Proof : Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
