Technology in Higher Education: What Are Universities Not Teaching?

When I began my first semester of college, I expected that four years of university education would transform me into a highly skilled professional, equipped with everything I'd need for a successful career. 

When it came to creating, programming, or doing well on a test I was beyond prepared, but failed to realize the equally important soft skills that no exam could teach how to communicate clearly, networking, and adaptability to a constantly changing technical landscape. 

Interpersonal skills weren't things you learned through curriculum, they are not prerequisites required to complete your degree. These skills are often developed through extra work put in outside of the classroom. Whether it's from workshops, interview prep, or networking, face-to-face social-emotional learning is just as necessary in landing your first job. However, not every student is privy to this knowledge.

Employers are increasingly concerned over the lack of soft skills in recent college graduates. In a 2019 report, the Society for Human Resource Management found that 51 percent of its members who responded to a survey said that education systems have done little or nothing to help address the skills shortage. The top skills include: problem solving, critical thinking, innovation, creativity, communication, and the ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity. 

This gap only continues to widen as evolving technology and artificial intelligence reshapes what employers are looking for.  Tools like ChatGpt and Gemini are already changing how entry-level work is being done. The students who will thrive past this aren't necessarily the ones who can code the quickest, they're the ones who know how to learn swiftly, evaluate new tools critically, and adapt their work.

College professors are often limited by university policy about what can be taught, even though many of them wish to place greater concentration on interpersonal skills in and beyond the classroom. University curricula can be rigid and values theoretical knowledge, lectures, and hard technical skills over all else. While this may seem like a normal approach to teaching, this culture enforces the idea that soft skills are optional extras rather than essential competencies and young students are facing the repercussions. 

The misalignment between the skills emphasized in higher education and those expected by employers in the workplace can be narrowed through deliberate changes, both in how universities structure curricula and how students choose to spend their time outside the classroom. Curriculum reform, mandatory collaboration learning, AI/tech literacy integration, and more accessible resources are all approaches that could help the next generation of graduates avoid facing the same fate as many before them: qualified on paper, yet unprepared for the highly interpersonal professional world.