Latest / NCSC College Connections / NCSC Podcast "College Connections" - Season 2, Episode 2 - "Changing Workplace and Jobs Skills of Tomorrow"

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NCSC Podcast "College Connections" - Season 2, Episode 2 - "Changing Workplace and Jobs Skills of Tomorrow" · NCSC College Connections

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to College Connections, sponsored by north Central State College.
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  I'm Keith Stoner. This series was developed to help students
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  and parents explore higher education and make the best informed
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  choice for themselves and their families. Welcome to a new
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  series for the north Central State College Podcast. We're going
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  to talk about things like adaptive intelligence in this series,
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  and it's an exploration of all things that are new
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  in workforce and education and how those are really strongly
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  aligned now to what used to be liberal arts. My
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  guest today is doctor Stephen Haines. He is the Dean
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  of Liberal Arts at north Central State College and I'm
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  Keith Stoner. But let's dive right in. Good morning, Steve.
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  How you doing good?
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  Speaker 2: How are you today? Keith?
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  Speaker 1: Not too bad? You know. We are just blessed to
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  live in a country where there are just countless new
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  opportunities for a workforce. But those jobs of the future
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  are needing new skills, more advanced skills, technical skills. How
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  is that aligning with what used to be core courses
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  Now they're Liberal arts, but it's really coming to the forefront.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. The economy of this country and the
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  jobs that is going to emerge is going to be
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  shocking over the next few years. And I mean if
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  you look at the World Economic Former report from twenty
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  twenty five where they looked at thousands of employers and
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  surveyed them, and sixty percent say their business is going
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  to be completely transformed by technology. And people are rightly
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  concerned about this. I mean, forty percent of those same
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  employers say that a lot of the skills that workers
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  have today are going to be obsolete.
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  Speaker 1: That's scary that it is extremely.
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  Speaker 2: Concerning and rightfully so. And believe it or not, education
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  in liberal arts is a way to try and deal
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  with this new reality that we're going into.
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  Speaker 1: So we're able to equip we're basically equipping people to
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  learn how to continually learn to adapt to new job
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  skills and new responsibilities and new requirements of those jobs
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  throughout their career.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And I mean if you look at just
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  you know, the topic on everybody's mind today is AI
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  you're talking about a huge number of businesses or just
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  plain that out that that alone is going to transfer
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  things and a lot of people are jobs are going
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  to completely change, and really what their employers are saying
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  they're going to be looking for are just basic skills
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  like analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, and curiosity.
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  These are the top skills that employers are going to
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  be looking for and say they're looking for. And yes,
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  I know all the time people hear about the benefits
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  of going into technical education and for a lot of
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  people that is the right choice. If you're going into
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  one of those specific careers like nursing, healthcare, things like that, Yeah,
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  absolutely those technical programs are are going to be amazing
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  for you. But if you're not going into one of
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  those very specific niches, you're going to want more of
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  a general education that are going to teach you these skills.
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  And it's liberal arts believed or not. Is those foundational
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  ideas that are really going to set you apart from
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  everybody else in this economy coming forward.
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  Speaker 1: Well, certainly even the technical skilled individuals are you know,
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  they're going to have to update their skills or upskill,
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  you know, throughout their career because you know, technology is
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  always going to change. It doesn't matter what industry we're in.
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  You mentioned healthcare, but it could certainly line to manufacturing
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  or business sales, logistics, marketing, whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Oh so, yeah, there's not an industry that is not
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  going to be touched by this. It is just a
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  fact and it's what's going to happen. And this is
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  nothing new. I mean, we've gone through these throughout life
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  in human history. This is the one we're just dealing
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  with right now. I mean, I'm old enough to remember
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  the technology boom of the nineties and how that was
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  going to change everything. Well now it's just normal, and
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  we're just at one of those points now where we're
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  having to deal with it again. And eventually it'll be
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  the normal again, it'll be something else. But right now,
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  this is what people are needing, and this is what
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  the employers are saying that they want.
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  Speaker 1: So we're talking to adapt for the future, adapt to live,
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  adapt to move forward. The versatility that adaptability, I think
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  that's really something. It's also aligning really really well with
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  the big new kahuna and the in the world is
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  you know, artificial intelligence. It's everywhere and it's getting entrenched
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  within so many different areas of study and business and jobs. Employers.
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  We had some data I think you and I shared
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  it that we had ninety plus percent of like Fortune
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  five hundred companies want people who know how to adapt
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  and use those tools in the workplace today. And you
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  know that's another area where you just excel for students.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And it's almost a joke. You know people
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  when they talk about useless college degrees. I'll pick on
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  myself for example, I'm a historian. What are you going
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  to do with history? If what are you going to
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  do in the real world? Right? But the jokes on
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  those people, because again, if you're looking at what employers
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  are asking for and what they're needing, it is what
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  you're learning in these quote unquote boring subjects that have
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  no practicality in real life. But believe it or not,
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  guess what you're learning in these classes like history, like English,
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  like math, like a lot of these you know, psychology, philosophies.
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  It is critical analytical thinking, communication skills, research skills, creativity,
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  logical reasoning, adaptability, all the things that employers are asking for.
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  That's what you're really learning in these courses in this program.
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  And this is the way to go in a lot
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  of cases.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Well that I appreciate all your time to talk
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  about this, and it really comes down to liberal arts.
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  Isn't just for entry level, isn't just for basic course work.
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  It's really a pathway now to provide flexibility and for
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  the future of work, which you know, in many cases
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  we've got people telling us, you know, instead of having
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  one or two jobs like our parents had, you know,
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  you may have twenty or thirty different jobs throughout your career.
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  You know, that flexibility, those skills of how to learn
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  and adapt and become proficient, you know, in different industries
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  or align your skills to different industries, is just invaluable
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  and I appreciate that very much.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And we are here to help you really
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  adapt to this and to really set yourself apart in
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  your future career and your future life. We are dedicated
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  at North Central State College to helping the students and
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  their lives after they leave our institution. We are really
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  here for them.
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  Speaker 1: Well, this has been a great first session. I'm really
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  excited to start this series. I hope people are as
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  interested as we need them to be, because it really
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  is going to be a life changing opportunity for a
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  lot of students, I think as we look forward to
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  a new generation here with increased technological skills. So again,
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  this is a session of one session of the beginning
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  of a new podcast series, and we're talking about adaptive intelligence,
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  and we are exploring how college is changing. We're changing
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  to keep up with technology, but we're also changing to
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  keep up with the needs of employers and our students
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  and their families. This podcast is sponsored by North Central
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  State College. You can reach out anytime at Ncstatecollege dot
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  edu if you'd like more information. I want to thank
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  you doctor Haynes for being our guest today and to
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  all of you for listening. I'm Keith Stoner and we
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  will see you next time.