campusreview . com . au policy & reform practical , hands-on data science is usually not to go and take further education , but rather to use any number of means to get your hands on real data and start applying your skills to real world problems . Employers want people that are practically able to do the work , moving away from the theoretic capabilities that are enabled by tertiary education .
If you look forward into the next 5 to 10 years , what do you think young people will be doing to get started in their careers ? I ’ ve been watching some videos on assisting people with coding at the moment , and these very experienced coders all made the point that they will go to Google 5 or 10 times an hour to quickly find how you structure that code . We ’ re not expected to learn a syntax which is tested in an exam and then sits with us for the next 20 years . There ’ s going to be a whole bunch of new programming languages by then . You learn some concepts , usually on the tools , and you then realise that you have at your disposal an incredible resource , whether we ’ re talking about forums or just searchable repositories of knowledge .
Our way of working in these technical skills is much more about looking up what you need at that point in time , or taking libraries that other people have written and shared in an open source community .
When you think in the technology space about the move towards open source and open sharing , it ’ s much more about using the building blocks that other people have prepared rather than creating from scratch . You take other people ’ s expert knowledge . I think we learn more and more about how to work with other people ’ s completed components than to be a master of all the skills required ourselves .
Do you think that we have enough of an interface at the moment between commercial reality and higher education ? Culturally , the idea of moving our students much more towards the practical skill sets they ’ re going to need when they leave the education system and enter the workplace is a great idea . I know they find those subjects very rewarding . I know when you head to your first couple of interviews , it ’ s very hard to be able to talk practically about relevant experience in your job to prove that you can do something .
If you have done courses that have required you to solve real world problems or you ’ ve taken it on your own bat and looked at some of the competitions that are out there , competing in forums that are available online where you can then look at the best answers and learn from that , I think is an incredible shortcut to a semester long course around the same topic .
There used to be this sort of social construct around the institutions that people were accepted into that gave them a heightened sense of self and identity . Do you think we ’ re going to start seeing the Deakins and the more progressive universities becoming the ‘ boastable ’ entity , as opposed to what has happened in the past . I would agree with you , absolutely . It ’ s interesting having been through the private school system and to a sandstone university , and now with a son about to finish at the same private school actually question to what extent that was genuinely money well spent .
I ’ m really questioning the value of prestige when there are so many alternatives now for a high quality education , especially for a curious learner . I did a lot of post-graduate work as well in the actuarial area , as I was trying to become a fellow of the Institute of the Actuaries of Australia . I was studying volumes of superannuation legislation . It bored me to absolute tears . In fact , to the extent that it was the first thing that I never finished in my life .
Why did I not finish it ? Well , because at the same time , the internet was catching this exponential wave and becoming the latest and the greatest thing . I found that I was excited to go home and learn how to program web development and web languages . It was when I realised that when you ’ re genuinely excited and curious about a topic , you ’ re not really learning , you know ? You ’ re enjoying yourself and you ’ re learning on the side as opposed to trying to force yourself to learn something dry , like superannuation legislation .
As an employer yourself at PwC and as someone who consults to enormous organisations , what are you looking for now in terms of talent ? I remember the most prized positions at the hardest-to-get-into management consulting firms when I was first entering the workforce , what they were famous for was actually not caring what you studied . The newest recruits into the Boston Consulting Group in my year of admission included someone who had just done her post-graduate in bioinformatics , and someone else who ’ d done their masters in theology . Now , they obviously weren ’ t going to be doing high-end management consulting and theology , it was more the point that person had topped that year and topped that subject . So , they were looking for the best of the best , regardless of the content that was studied .
I ’ m looking for someone who can demonstrate practically that they ’ re able to solve and understand a problem . That experience may have come through a job which they ’ d taken on the weekends or something which they , under their own steam , went out and learned and practised or demonstrated in a gamified data science competition .
It might have nothing to do with their formal education . So , I think there are other ways that you can prove to a prospective employer that you have practical skills of value rather than simply the qualifications that you have under your belt .
I don ’ t think you ’ re alone on that thinking , but I don ’ t know how well communicated that thinking is . I think it ’ s really important and almost a duty of care to share that information with younger people and students . I think that continued development and increasing of your value as an individual in the workforce is part of the employee value proposition . We might not necessarily pay the highest salaries at a given grade , but we will add to the mix not just things like global travel through an international consulting firm , but a learning platform where you are encouraged to take continual courses for your own development .
Is there anything that really stands out to you at the moment when it comes to higher education ? One of the things that ’ s going to stand you in the best stead is knowing how to find the right information , knowing the best place to go to look something up , organising your own information in a way that ’ s searchable and that makes sense for you . So , the meta information and the ability to traverse that allows you to very quickly move between formal bodies of knowledge because you understand how to search . ■
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