Teaching Data Analytics and the Tightening Link Between Education and Work
As we lean into Halloween and the end-of-year sprint through Thanksgiving and the December holidays, my days are filled with:
traveling to education conferences to help educators recreate schooling to successfully serve each and every student;
teaching my class at Harvard;
pondering—and perhaps procrastinating from making—the edits from our publisher on the first draft of my next book with Ethan Bernstein and Bob Moesta that will help individuals change jobs and navigate their careers more successfully;
and… resuming my Class Disrupted podcast with Diane Tavenner!
More on the latter soon, but for now, Jeff Selingo and I are cranking away at Future U. Our latest episode delved into data analytics, specifically how, according to a new paper Jeff wrote, data analytics has become the new hot foreign language or computer science for all of this decade—and how universities need to figure out how to offer data analytics across their programs for business and English majors alike.
We then dissected the latest New York Times Education issue, with a particular focus on Paul Tough’s piece titled “Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That?” and the latest College-Access Index, a list of the country’s most-selective universities ranked in terms of economic diversity by David Leonhardt and Ashley Wu.
Check out our conversation here, at “Deep Into Data Analytics.”
The Tightening Link Between Education and Work
Over at Forbes, I argue that as the pace of technological change accelerates and the half-life of skills continues to shrink, what students must learn is becoming less specifiable, predictable, and verifiable ahead of time.
When the interface between two components don’t meet those conditions (specifiable, predictable, and verifiable), then the theory of interdependence and modularity teaches us that the two components must be developed interdependently—or else the system won’t satisfy people’s demands.
The implications for colleges are many, but one of the clearest is that the importance of learning by doing will continue to elevate in importance. As a result, colleges will need to create more connections to the world of work—whether through projects, apprenticeships, internships and externships, or work-study.
This background is what makes former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift’s latest career move to assume the president of Education at Work, a non-profit that partners with businesses and colleges to offer students jobs during school, all the more noteworthy.
In an age where the debate on the value of higher education rages on, Swift is staking a middle ground. “There's a prevailing notion that college education either aids or hinders social mobility, particularly for traditionally underserved groups,” she said. “I firmly believe that college, when pursued in an economically sensible manner and coupled with meaningful employment opportunities, can be a powerful tool for upward mobility.”
Education at Work has a singular aim: to aid college students in finding employment during their academic years with prominent employers. This dual focus not only makes higher education more financially accessible as the students are paid for their work, but also equips students with job skills, broadens their professional network, and amplifies the real-world relevance of their academic pursuits.
You can read the full piece, “Former Mass. Governor Moves To Support Employment With College,” here.
Business and the Entrepreneurial Mindset
Finally, my friend and longtime colleague Michelle Weise (author of
) and I recently moderated a conversation for College Guidance Network with the president of Babson, Stephen Spinelli, and Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring and CEO of Latch, about what students interested in entrepreneurship should do to feed their passion and prepare themselves. Check out the conversation here:As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.