This blog post was inspired by an article in the Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2013 titled “Unpaid Internships? Some Colleges Pick Up the Tab.” The focus of the article was that some colleges are starting to fund internships at for-profit firms, whereas historically colleges had only funded internships at not-for-profits and government agencies. The article states that the reason for this change is that “colleges’ job-placement rates have come under intense scrutiny as cost-conscious families, stung by rapidly rising tuition, want proof that universities can deliver on both academic and career fronts.” This article brings into focus the question: What is the role of colleges and universities in the 21st century global knowledge economy?
Furthermore, how can colleges and universities prepare their graduates to be competitive in the 21st century? Should the philosophy be advancing knowledge versus advancing profits; teaching wisdom versus teaching practice; or providing a liberal education versus a utilitarian education?
I am particularly sensitive to these questions because my research is centered on a university campus. Through investigation of entrepreneurship at Yale I am attempting to demonstrate that universities are in the vanguard of the global knowledge economy. Technology, entrepreneurship, and education are an extraordinarily powerful combination, asserted Erik Brynjolfsson a MIT professor and Andrew McAfee a principal research scientist at MIT, the authors of Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy.
In my opinion Brynjolfsson and McAfee are correct: colleges and universities would better serve students (and their parents) by sponsoring entrepreneurship on campus through pedagogy and hands-on application of principles of entrepreneurship rather than paying for internships at for-profit companies.
The focus on internships as a way to gain a competitive advantage in securing a job upon graduation misses the point that an enduring education is about absorbing principles of learning. In an Op-Ed in the New York Times (June 23, 2013) Verlyn Klinkenborg stated, “there is a new and narrowing vocational emphasis in the way students and their parents think about what to study in college.” Harvard’s popular introductory computer science class, CS 50 is an empirical example of how a university can approach teaching principles that relate to 21st century skills yet ensure that the learning has an enduring impact. Professor David Malan’s philosophy is that he teaches how to think more carefully and how to solve problems. Because computer languages change from time to time he focuses on teaching his students how to program, how to create data sets, rather than how to master a particular computer language. Professor Malan’s approach to teaching is similar to one of my law school professors who emphasized that his job was not to teach us the law, which changes from time to time, but rather, to shape our minds, and to teach us how to think like lawyers. In a world where the future is being shaped in real time, shouldn’t we focus on approaches to learning that will survive the next big thing, the next hot job category or merely getting a job?
Now, before accepting an offer of employment potential employees should consider additional factors such as can my job be off-shored? Can my job be displaced through technology? If my job is not displaced by a human or technology, how will it be impacted by technology?