The Importance of “Soft Skills” Part 2

In a past article, I wrote about the importance of “soft skills” expressed in every meeting with representatives from industry. Every meeting – every single one – begins with “I need someone with ‘soft skills.’”?This statement remains the universal first statement – no exceptions.?In that article I wrote how terrible jobs – in fast food or retail - lead to the development of soft skills.?But there is another way – college – if done properly.?

???????????General Education courses also teach many of these skills.?“I want someone who can write.”?A college degree requires that everyone takes English composition.?“I want someone with critical thinking skills.”?Faculty build critical thinking into every class.?In History classes, students learn to use original sources to separate exaggerated stories from reality.?“I want someone with oral communication skills.”?Speech classes teach this, and many classes require presentations.?To complete a college degree requires the development of time management skills.?A complete liberal education supplements their discipline specific education with a broad exploration of other fields – and some of these experiences lead to the development of characteristics that employers group into the category of “soft skills.”???

You see a backlash against going to college – everywhere.?Critics point to the exploding cost of higher education and to the accumulation of trillions of dollars of student debt.?But set that aside to consider the intrinsic value of higher education.?What happened??

When did the idea “it would be better for society if as many citizens as possible became college educated” to “college education benefits that individual – therefore they should pay”??The college experience teaches resilience and self-reliance and… oh, soft skills.????

???????????I had to take General Education courses as a Biology major.?I was checking boxes, and I did not have much initial enthusiasm, but these turned out to be valuable classes:?English, anthropology, macroeconomics, history, logic, and philosophy.?Soft skills.

???????????A philosophy class rocked my world.?My friend and I signed up for a course called the Philosophy of Ethics at UCLA.?I took it Pass/No Pass and intended to put as little work into it as possible – to check a box.?On the first day the professor strolled around the front of the classroom in Moore Hall – a classroom with a design right out of central casting on what a university amphitheater would look like – and he asked in a Socratic manner, “What is justice?”?The following discussion of Plato’s Republic literally stunned me.?My first-generation, working class, suburban, public school-educated self had never been exposed to this world.?I thought, “not only do I not know these answers, I never really knew the questions.”?After the Republic we read John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, and Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s Social Contract.?Later I sat in on (without enrolling in) three quarters of “Integrated Arts,” where a patrician European professor wove together visual arts, sculpture, music, design, and architecture from multiple eras. I took two quarters of “History of Jazz” with Paul Tanner, who had played Trombone with Glenn Miller.?I very much wish that everyone would experience something like this.?With General Education requirements, we force college students to expand their perspectives.?Soft skills.??

???????????I took English composition at UCLA with Mike Rose, who became a giant in the education field.?I’ll confess that I thought, at the time, that the exercises that we were given were dumb.?And I’ll admit, with the benefit of time, that I was wrong.?I use what I learned in that class every day.?Soft skills.

???????????A Biology major always attracted me because I thought that it represented “a liberal education” in science.?Majors have to take at least a year of calculus (I had a math minor and took two), chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and physics.?(My first two years included all of the courses needed for a physics or engineering major).?Oh yeah, and you take biology too.??Chemists and Physicists don’t necessarily take Biology, but every Biologist takes Chemistry and Physics. And I found those subjects to be extraordinary interesting – and in the end very useful.?

???????????When I was a teaching assistant and later lecturer at several campuses of the University of California, you would hear faculty say, “we are not a trade school – we teach students to think.”?And a professor friend of mine would often say, “students ask me about jobs.?I don’t know anything about jobs.?I have a job.”?It sounds harsher than it was – he was very, very student centered, but thinking about students’ careers was just contrary to the academic culture at that an R1 university.

I argue for the field of biotechnology because it brings in the best of both worlds.?Students experience the dual purpose of academic science education that is intellectually engaging and stimulating, but also the also Career Technical Education (what we used to call Voc Ed) training that teaches practical laboratory, pilot scale, regulatory, and quality knowledge and skills.?And soft skills.?????

I hate that the pendulum has swung into the “you shouldn’t go to college” movement.?My college experience – and woven into it was a classic liberal education - enriched my life then and every day.?But I guess where the critics are right is that the liberal education should be tempered with practicality.?And debt accumulation remains a major national problem.?The humanities courses are important and should be appreciated – for their ability to teach “soft skills”.?