The importance of data and research in the students life journey

The 21st century is truly an overwhelmingly impressive experience for people of all genders and ages. In today’s fast-paced world, it is child’s play for one to get lost amidst the mayhem and confusion. The introduction of hundreds of new courses for students to select from can pose a challenge when trying to figure out one’s educational course of action. “So what is the best or the most rewarding course for my child to pursue?” – a commonly asked question by most parents. However, the truth is that there is no concrete answer to that very question. 

With the introduction of newer courses comes the opportunity of new business ideas and even innovative new professions. 5 years back no one would have imagined that a professional Gamer or a Social Media Influencer could make enough to support their livelihood. Rather than having a student completely focused on one course, in today’s day and age, it is imperative for students to be multi-faceted in their approach to education. 

As markets have become more demanding, consumers are often spoiled for choices when they are on the verge of buying products. Suppliers will try their level best to make their product more versatile, trying to encompass all the demands. Similarly, employers are looking out for graduates who can not only fulfill core requirements but also have several other skills that may pertain to subjects completely unrelated to what one has excelled in previously.

For example, an engineer is not selected solely for his technical know-how. A candidate with a more holistic profile, someone who can communicate effectively with the sales and marketing team to understand the psychology of the consumers in order to make the most suitable product, someone who can effectively work as a team member and contribute would be seen as a better fit. 

The need for better research skills and understanding data science is of utmost importance now more than ever before. Research skills can be described as being able to provide in-depth information, detailed analysis and suitable advice on a given topic after researching extensively on that topic. Research Skills allows graduates to recognize a problem, gather informational resources that can help acknowledge the issue at hand, assess these resources for quality and relevance, and come up with an effective solution to the problem. In today’s day in order to inculcate good research skills, one can follow the motto ‘Data is King’. An interdisciplinary field, data science deals with processes and systems, which are used to extract knowledge or insights from large amounts of data. Data science, over the past decade, has played a pivotal role in several industries like agriculture, marketing optimization, risk management, fraud detection, marketing analytics, and public policy among others.

The stream of graduates coming into the pool of the job world is constantly beating their predecessors. With the world focusing more on increasing automation, many reliable and noteworthy traditional jobs have become almost extinct. A cameraman who would traditionally sit in a helicopter and take award-winning photographs has been rendered jobless, with the introduction of drones in the market, as also the pilot in charge of commanding the helicopter. 

Liberal arts and sciences have intertwined with technical and quantitative skills to form a compelling interdisciplinary field. The 3 R’s of education – [R]eading, w[R]iting and a[R]ithmatic, are now obsolete and have been replaced by the 7 C’s – [C]omprehension, [C]ommunication, [C]omputation, [C]uriosity, [C]ritical thinking, [C]ollaboration, and [C]onsciousness. The T-shaped individual is now the ideal candidate – someone with the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field coupled with the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own.

— @Bakhtawar Krishnan

Director| Inspirus Education

Email – [email protected]