How to equip graduates for the future

I've been very aware of this debate since HEA's Paul Ramsden formerly voiced his concerns to government in the late 2000s. This a great insight for which I thank you, but what about enterprising grads who will need to be creative in Microbusiness and demonstrate initiative? (APPG Micro Business 5th report, 2014), or further still, those who wish to become entrepreneurs themselves and have to juggle responsibilities? There can be a significant difference as to what big business wants when compared to start ups, their founders and their first staff members, and being innovative appears to be the primary requirement. Creatives like designers look out as much as they look in, and take views from others that enable them to see perspectives they may not have considered before. Set Squared's Researcher to Innovator and ICure approaches adopt these approaches, and the results speak for themselves. This is a crucial debate in my view, and definitely has potential to impact on the needs of a post brexit learning environment.

Fascinating.... and soundly rebuffs the concept that your degree merely prepares you for a job! I'm a case in point. Started off with an undergraduate degree in botany, did some research, found there to be no jobs so took a sharp turn and became a trainee programmer in a software house, taking Open University courses to provide theoretical background to what I learned on the job. 20-odd years later, I've slithered back into academic life, in computer science... and the student who's just been to see me has left with a better idea of how databases hang together based on that early software house job! It's all about acquiring and retaining the love of finding stuff out. I read widely, and take advantage of being in a university by going to talks on things I know nothing about, precisely BECAUSE I know nothing about them. Now, how to pass on that intellectual curiousity to the students, along with how to construct a database, that's the trick...

Indeed, encouraging a curious mind unlocks our talent from the 'silocitis' of the university framework. Perhaps as our institutions 'pilot' cross curricular learning including the in-curricular and extracurricular entrepreneurship we will be able to address this oft' cited UK productivity gap where our new knowledge workers harness technology to create the dawn of a future jobs landscape we have yet to witness?

With the growing pressure to 'decolonise' (colon in the biological sense perhaps?) and instead potentially/preferably 'globalisation' of curriculum (a far better idea to study the interrelations of societies, historically at least), I wonder if cross-discipline will occur naturally, as it did in the distant past when University 'study' was more a religious occupation in religious colleges. And lets not forget that a PhD was Philosophy plus a broad, and the 'sciences' were just a part, course of study including the liberal arts, based on an equally broad undergrad experience. Modern governmental desires for 'cheap' commercially relevant courses, scientific advance and all that goes with it has made for narrow undergrad courses, not that it's always a bad thing with some of the 'harder' subjects, broadening once graduated to become far more inclusive of other disciplines is a natural progression. Forcing undergrads who are struggling with their selected field already to embrace interdisciplinary activity as well won't end well for all concerned. Though as we know only too well too many academics become ever more narrow in their field of research, very few do interdisciplinary activity effectively, that needs addressing first, before throwing students in the deep end.

Years ago I wrote an article "The Competent Layperson: Re-envisioning the Ideal of the Educated Person" which was finally published (It is available at researchgate under Mark Battersby). In it I argued that the goal of undergraduate liberal arts curriculum should be to empower students to be sophisticated employers of expertise rather than junior experts in one field. That would mean that intro courses should not be tailored to nascent majors but people who will read poet, science, employ statisticians and architects etc rather than being one. We are all laypeople in most of our lives even within our own disciplines. Statistics courses for everyone? No, courses in basic understanding of inferential tatistics and knowledge of when to employ and questions ask them.

Thanks for your insights in this article. Interesting reading as I am also questionning the orientation of undergraduate degrees. We have introduced collaborative team teaching and linked our final year core papers within our marketing discipline, to ensure that students connect the content effectively. So far this is working really well although it is impacting on the amount of work required of academics (another 'hot topic'). I wonder about the research generator that so many academics are being pushed into, which in itself challenges the interdisciplinary approaches we might otherwise be more open to scubscribe to. We are so busy producing to gain those publications, and to 'be that expert' that fw managers recommend a multisciplinary approach to research at all for fear of losing focus. Whilst silos promote specialisation, they breed separation, and there is more onus on the academic to broaden their student's perspectives beyond the walls of their discipline/content area. A signficant challenge for many. Intellectual curiosity is a wonderful concept, but how realistic is this in a world where we can't even have a dinner conversation without 'googling it' - we don't even work through our own perspectives any more. Are we expecting too much of our students to do the same? Even if we did introduce a truly multi and inter disciplinary undergraduate programme, the challenge is likely to be considerable if we remain in our own silos of disciplines. Can 'we' change? If we rehouse academics according to thematic areas (sustainability, social impact, technology), do we even need to change the programmes? Will the shift naturally result in different inclass discussions and content being covered? It would be interesting to hear more about these thematic groupings, with and without changes being made to curriculum.

Great read! Happy to share our experiences at Cardiff School of Art & Design, Cardiff Metropolitan University since making changes to our Undergraduate scheme in 2012. Transdisciplinary opportunities are at the core of our Research and L&T strategy, and freeing our structures from siloes whilst retaining discipline areas has proved successful as evidenced by the commendations at 5 yr periodic review: 1. The scheme as a whole is unique, adventurous, and credible. It is well understood and owned by staff and students. 2. The genuine trans-disciplinarily nature of the scheme 3. The material provision and learning spaces are excellent and entirely consistent with the curriculum and pedagogy. 4. The scheme is effectively student-led and highly responsive to student feedback. 5. Excellent research practice is embedded into teaching, which in turn inspires research. It’s been an interesting journey and we’re constantly vigilant for opportunities to improve the student and staff experience. We also have an incubation post grad unit and strive for research led L&T, bringing the transdisciplinary themes of Art & Science, Design & Wellbeing and Human centred design to the UG and Masters community. We aim to replace the current narrow STEM agenda to champion a broader more creative STEAMED vision. Professor Olwen Moseley FHEA FRSA Dean, Cardiff School of Art & Design