My last talk to the graduates of 2017

Last week during the final day of class before my student’s graduate, I gave them the final talk: ” Congratulation on your graduation! The date finally comes, and I am proud that you all graduate and soon will begin a new working life. You need to know that the reason company hires you because of your knowledge and skills. Most of these skills are technical, as they are needed for the job. But your learning should NEVER stop there. There are many things that you will learn when working.”

“In the first few years, you will learn about applying your technical skills to your work, but over time these skills will gradually matter less. The longer you work, the less you will be evaluated on these skills, but you have to learn new skills, whatever the new skills are. It could be new programming languages, new designing methods, new platforms, new algorithms or something else. Technology changes fast, and you must continue to update your skills, but at the same time, you also need to improve the other skills: The soft skills. As I have told you technical skills help you to get the job, but they will NOT be the ones that get you promote to the next level.”

“As a professional, you will learn what skills that you need when it comes to advancement at each stage of your career. While every job is different, the key is to improve your “soft skills” and your ability to get things done and your leadership abilities. The higher position that you get, the more important these skills will become. You must ask yourself what are your strengths and your weakness? Which skills do you think that you need now, and why? By knowing that, you can improve them. You also need to discuss with your manager to determine which skills are necessary for you to learn now and how important are they? What can you expect to get when you have those skills? By continue to improve your skills, I am sure that you can advance in your career faster than you think. If you are my students, you should NEVER STOP learning.”

Suddenly a student asked: “What if the manager still wants me to improve the technical skills?”

I told him: “If your manager wants you to focus on the technical skills, it could mean you are still at a lower level and need to improve your technical before doing something else. However, after three to five years, your manager still insist on the technical skills, it could mean the company may value the technical more than others.”

Another sstudent asked: “Which technical areas would be critical in the next five years or give us the best chance to advance?”

I answered: “I think some areas will grow fast because the demands are high in the industry. There will be significant progress in the communication area. As more people have mobile phones, there will be a high demand for workers with these communication technology skills. There will be more connected devices via wireless technology, so the Internet of Things (IoT) area will grow very fast. The next five years will also be the time where robots will do many things. Today we already see self-driving cars, and factory robots, but soon there will be more smart home devices, and smart robots and drones and these technologies will create more jobs.

The more electronic devices we have, the more we need the energy to service and support this technology driven world. We will continue seeking new ways to reduce energy use, but the overall demand will continue to rise. Which will result in new ways to provide, transmit and store power. Wind, Solar, and Thermal Energy will create more jobs instead of the traditional petroleum and water-based options which fall out of favor as they create pollution and health issues.

I believe there will be an advancement in science and technology in the next ten years, and they will create more jobs, but the question is can the education system changes fast enough to provide training and produce more skilled workers for the country? Could the next generation, students who are still in elementary and high school today develop the lifelong learning habit so they can be the innovators, the scientists, and engineers for the future?

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University