Preparing students for a rapidly-changing world

Parents and teachers often ask children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While it’s a simple question to spark their thinking, it may prove of little value these days. Studies show many jobs that exist today won’t be around by the year 2050, and with technology changing at the speed of light, there’s no telling which careers will endure. So, how does an academic institution prepare its students for a future or job market that’s uncertain?

That’s precisely what New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman explored during his visit to CETYS University in Mexico. The university specialises in entrepreneurship and innovation. Friedman spoke to faculty and students about how to succeed in an accelerated and rapidly-changing world as part of the CETYS Global Impact Series, a forum where renowned experts have addressed topics such as the global education imperative and preparing future graduates for success.

“The power of one today, to be a maker or a breaker, is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” said Friedman during his visit to CETYS. “And that’s why one [of my colleagues] always says never ask your kid what you want to be when you grow up. Because whatever it is, it’s not going to be here unless it’s a policeman or a fireman. Only ask your kid today how you want to be when you grow up. Will you have an agile learning mindset? Will you be predisposed to be a lifelong learner?

“That is the single most important competitive advantage in a world where the things you learn in the first year of your BA may be outdated by the fourth year, in a world where the notion that you could get a four-year degree and sign out on that for 30 years of your career is so 1950s.”

One way to ensure students are building a lifelong love for learning is by offering them real-life, hands-on experience in and out of the classroom.

At CETYS, exposure to the world of work starts long before graduation. A great example is our Center of Excellence for Innovation and Design (CEID), inaugurated this past January, where students are already developing projects and solving industrial problems in the aeronautics, automotive, electronics, renewable energies and other sectors.

CETYS, using its alliances within Mexico and the United States, launched CEID as a place for creation and experimentation of new products in various sectors resulting in the generation of patents, process design and research studies.

With eight labs that can host up to 10 innovation and design projects simultaneously – including the applied research lab, which is modelled like an industrial shop floor – CEID is on its way to becoming an international innovation hub while preparing its students for the future workforce.

All projects at CEID require teamwork in cooperation with the corporate sector, faculty from CETYS’ engineering school and students. Such activity fosters innovation while empowering the region, and most importantly, offers students hands-on, practical experiences in collaboration with leading multinational companies such as Honeywell, Gulfstream and United Technologies, and with local and international faculty.

Global collaboration

That is the second way we instil a long-lasting interest in learning: by connecting students to international institutions and corporations so they can build relationships with communities and countries outside of Baja California and Mexico and develop a global perspective on business and life.

Global collaboration teaches students the foundations of how to learn and build the social and hands-on skills that are essential to succeed in this rapidly-changing world.

“We’re in the middle of changing the climate of globalisation,” said Friedman at CETYS.

“We’re going from an interconnected world to an interdependent world. And in an interdependent world – if Mexican, Italian or Greek banks go under, I’m going to feel that heavily in America. Italy and Greece: They’re in NATO. They’re the EU. They’re allies just as Mexico is. In an interdependent world, your rivals falling becomes more dangerous than your rivals rising.”

For Friedman, whether we like it or not, we are dependent on each other. Global collaboration is imperative and governments, corporations and even academic institutions are all building professional bridges for the future.

We see it when American manufacturers choose Baja California for its quality labour, and when, across borders, universities merge degrees and scholar programmes. We especially see it in regions such as Cali-Baja.

Proximity to American cities like San Diego gives students from CETYS University a unique advantage. Not only is our region already inherently bicultural, but the university offers programmes such as the decade-long double degree programme with City University of Seattle or our global programmes – taught completely in English – which further expose students to an intercultural perspective.

CETYS has collaboration agreements with many universities around the world, including significant engineering partnerships with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide Campus and St Cloud State University, among others, which have resulted in a wide array of academic mobility opportunities as well as innovative, binational programmes linked to current and future labour market needs.

“This school has its thinking cap on,” said Friedman about CETYS. “It’s thinking about how to enable students to be lifelong learners in the 21st century, which I think is going to be the single most competitive advantage.”

In the end, collaboration beyond borders, along with a humanistic approach to education, is what will result in what Friedman calls “healthy communities”, wherever these may be.

Fernando Leon-Garcia is the president of CETYS University in Baja California, Mexico.