27.11.2024 Today’s Insight from the Wall Street Journal: How Students (and Grads) Can AI-Proof Their Careers
Dear Students,
It’s the Thanksgiving rush! As ambitious international students like you diligently prepare for finals (after having just completed midterms), our coaches have noted how easy it is for you to get swept up in a focus on tests, grades, GPAs and coding mastery.
Yet, if you’ve ever doubted that launching a “future-proofed” career, and carving out a successful professional path, are more closely related to your power skills than to your technical prowess, you need only to read the above piece. Hot off the Wall Street Journal press yesterday, the article references a host of skills on which we coach as being key success factors for students like you, your friends, and new grads alike.
Some of the competencies specifically mentioned or alluded to, within the “Five Points” the author emphasizes, include a range of both interpersonal and personal power skills, like working with difficult people, managing conflict, teamwork, critical thinking, curiosity/inquisitiveness, continuous learning, adaptability, organizational skills, strategic thinking and planning, detail orientation, time management and commercial awareness.
The author also hints that authenticity and spontaneity are valuable power skills in which humans can still shine, in order for you to build trust with others.
And yes, while AI will continue to impact the future of work, and the workplace, in a myriad of as-yet undefined ways, “the “future belongs to humans who think. ” ‘AI is like a B+ student and can tell you what the average person would say,’ says Matthew Rascoff, Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University. ‘A+ work,’ he says, ‘is the product of an individual brain with a distinctive voice.’ So he urges students to develop their own voices and identities.”
If this message sounds familiar to aspiring professionals like you, it’s because our coaches have long guided you to develop your own POV (point of view) through initiative and innovation, and to effectively identify, communicate and market your distinctive capabilities, from the day you joined our program!
Here’s to an evening filled with “genuine A+ relaxation!”
Best,
Amy-Louise