All 1 entries tagged Employability
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October 15, 2010
Breakthrough
You know how at times, you read and read and read to try and figure out the link between certain elements of various theories but can't see it. Then suddenly, you find an article that clears it all up an puts it in perspective. Well, that happened to me today.
For awhile I was struggling to see how the idea of selection bias fit into Demings idea of profound knowledge then in one article, it all became clear. Don't you just love it when you get the "EUREKA!" moment.
And now for something completely different. We had our first seminar today, and one of the topic we talked about was the podcast of an interview with Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL technologies. In this interview, he talked about the failure of university degree courses around the world to provide graduates with real skillsapplicable in the work place. This results in graduates who are essentially unemployable, so any firm that does take them on has to provide extensive retraining in order for the graduate to have any of the skills and abilities required by the position. This was a topic that really struck a cord with me. From first hand experience, I completely agree with his view of the education provided in degree courses. My undergraduate degree was in European Economics with French. A fascinating course in many respects that involved a broad range of theoretical and legislative studies about economics and trade, as well as lots of statistical analysis techinques. How these studies could be employed in a working environment however, i have no idea. While the course provided an understanding of economics on a macro and micro level, both domestically and internationally, how this knowledge is put into application in a business sense was not covered. The results of this ws that the only chance I had of emplyability was a graduate scheme, in which I would be heavily retrained in order to be able to perform the functions needed. This was the case with nearly every other person who graduated alongside me, and naturally, in the recession we graduated right into the middle of our "unemployability" was not very useful. I had thought this train of thought was just my own, but to hear it coming from somebody in such a prestigous position somehow eases my mind and affirms that starting my MSc was infact the right choice.