The Future Degree is Not a Degree

The world of work is changing rapidly and, with it also the future degrees. It’s proven that companies prioritize candidates' accomplishments and experiences over grades and specific courses taken and education should evolve to support this new reality. The goal should be to acquire skills, through internships and real-world experience, rather than acquiring a piece of paper.

Evidence and Experiences Rather than Grades

During some recent product research, I spoke with a student who explained his strategy for class selection. He researched and selected the required classes that had only tests, not homework, and that didn’t grade attendance. These were usually massive lecture classes, with recitation sections led by graduate students. Then, he avoided going to every single class except the midterm and the final. He taught himself the concepts using videos online and managed to get a B- on the various exams. He used the time he gained by not attending class to work on his investment club, an organization where finance majors invested real money in the stock market and met to discuss how their picks were performing. His grades weren’t great. But he was gaining real-world experience about how the market worked.

The college recruiters we speak with during our product research constantly tell us “We don’t care about grades. We don’t care about the classes you’ve taken. We want to see what you’ve accomplished.” One recruiter explained, “If I can get a sense of what their interests are, I can understand what drives them and what they like doing.” Another, who was hiring for junior technical sales roles, told us that she looked for experience on the sports team because it showed the student was aggressive and wanted to win.

For students, showing these interests, hobbies, and sports experiences is critical. Recruiters are consuming rich media, just like the rest of us, and are looking for evidence, not just claims. This evidence of experience may be a video of a presentation, a blog that documents the creation of a project, or a photo album of the steps taken to accomplish a goal. But it’s no longer enough to simply add line items to a resume. Art and design students have been building portfolios for years. Other disciplines are now realizing the value of the visual manifestation of experiences.

Internships and Real-world Experience

One of the best industrial design programs in the United States right now is the Georgia Institute of Technology’s ID, and the reason is simple: students take mandatory co-ops before graduating, where they work in a full-time, paid, supervised position within their discipline. Since every other semester is spent outside of the classroom, gaining practical experience, students emerge from the program with a grounded, rational, professional set of capabilities. What’s more, while one of the most frequent complaints about employing college hires is their inability to be professional, the co-op experience teaches students to work successfully in a workplace and with other people.

Co-op and internship programs are fundamental for establishing hireability, and it’s not just art and design programs that encourage students to get out of the classroom. Increasing numbers of nursing programs, dietetics programs, and other health and wellness majors demand students experience “real life” before graduation.

Acquiring Skills, Not Just a Piece of Paper

One recruiter explained to us that, as she was tasked to fill dozens of technical positions in a short time, she didn’t analyze if students had graduated or were planning on graduating any time soon. As she explained, “We don’t care what a person has done – did they sling burgers at McDonalds, that doesn’t matter to me. What do they have in their being? Do they possess the attributes that will lead them to success?” She was looking for both hard and soft skills, and – again – evidence that those skills have been practiced. She needed candidates who could code in Ruby on the Rails platform and had example applications for her to view. She needed candidates who exhibited professionalism, the ability to direct their own work efforts, and the ability to communicate effectively in teams. Those things can be shown on a resume, but they’re a lot more believable when they're evidenced by real, working artifacts, rich media of the student, and some approval from a third party. The skills come to life, and the degree at the end of the experience becomes less relevant. Said another way, the skills a student has acquired do more to define them than the piece of paper at the end of the slog, and recruiters aren’t really interested in transcripts anymore.

The future degree is not a degree. Internships, evidence, and skills can be acquired without attending a university. It takes volition and drive to pull together these items into a portfolio without the structure of a school. But in the face of massive debt or overcrowded community colleges, students will begin to find that volition and new products and services will help them tell their story in a way that levels the competitive playing ground of job acquisition.