A friend of mine’s son, Justin, has decided he wants to pursue software engineering as a career path after his district introduced a new STEM program.

In asking his reasoning behind the decision, he responded

“Everything in the future will revolve around technology. It’s already everywhere. And all of that tech needs to be coded, right? So learning to code is pretty much like job security for life”.

His logic is sound. Although about 60 percent of U.S. schools don’t offer computer science courses, there are still over 500,000 job openings currently available in computing [Ryan Johnston, 2018, edscoop.com]. The occupational hole is obvious, so filling that gap should be the safest route. And while Justin will most likely be guaranteed a job immediately upon graduating, I’m not sure he’ll also be guaranteed career-long job sustainability.

“As new innovations alter the occupational landscape, job sustainability becomes more unpredictable.”

Coding is in demand for today, but will it still be in demand tomorrow? Justin, like many others, was unintentionally short-sighted in his prognostication. He failed to consider one of many often misunderstood and frequently over-looked factors that are influencing the outcome of our future: the rise of autonomy.

The use and proliferation of autonomous systems is one of the major contributors to the advent of the modern-tech age (often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution). From novel and efficient robotics to powerful machine learning and A.I. Autonomy is commonly viewed as trivial or too far off in the future to take seriously, but it actually needs to house a bigger portion in our conversations about the future of human labor.

Just a few weeks after Justin told me he was pursuing software engineering, an article came out that announced Google's newest feat: An A.I. that could code better than the humans that created it.

This innovation could create a reasonable dent in the demand for future software engineers as other companies adopt the new technology. After all, utilizing an A.I. as a replacement for human devs could mean fewer errors in your code, which transfers to less money spent on iterations and faster product-to-market processes. (Not to mention A.I. systems don’t request any PTO.)

This is just one of many possible outcomes for the tech-driven future. As new innovations alter the occupational landscape, job sustainability becomes more unpredictable.

Novel technologies are popping up overnight, which means new jobs to develop and regulate those technologies will pop up as well. But a majority of tech start-ups die out as fast as they ascend. It’s nearly impossible to predict what the market will look like tomorrow; which new jobs will emerge and which jobs will fade away or succumb to autonomy.

How can we teach and prepare our students for a job market that we can’t predict?

The answers are simple and straight forward: Creativity and Autodidacticism. These two skill sets need to be the goal of the fourth industrial revolution’s educational reform and the focus for contemporary students.

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

“It’s the assembly line worker’s manifesto wrapped and presented in new packaging.”

Creativity is the ability to generate novel and meaningful ideas. It’s a skill set that can be fostered in everyone, not just artists. And it’s one of the best ways to navigate ambiguity.

Autodidacticism is the ability to self-direct one’s learning. It’s important for students to know how to utilize the wealth of knowledge the internet provides us, and to teach themselves new skills and interpret novel information appropriately.

These are abilities that are predicated on networks and connectivity and flourish most when incorporating all fields. And while these skill sets can be utilized in pursuit of STEM, isolating the STEM programs themselves does not inherently encourage the growth of these skills efficiently.

Creating an educational hierarchy by isolating certain subjects at the expense of others won’t be an effective method for facing tomorrow’s culture.

To be clear, I’m not meaning to use the term STEM pejoratively. I don’t want to communicate that the STEM fields are unimportant. Quite the contrary; I believe that proficiency in STEM will leave every student who pursues it undoubtedly better off in the future. These are imperative fundamental disciplines that improve a student’s efficacy. (Not to mention software engineering entails much more than simply writing code, and STEM pursuits offer much more than just software engineering.)

But elevating these four subjects inadvertently devalues the subjects pushed to the fringe. Students and parents alike undervalue the humanities and the concept of a well-rounded education. There is a push encouraging students to only pursue and grow in skillsets that are immediately useful upon graduating, but it’s a focus that fails to realize the importance of cross-disciplinary growth for our future endeavors. Each one of the STEM fields requires a wealth of creative ability, especially for today’s culture. Employees need to be able to think beyond their field, learn fast and effectively on their own, and cross-pollinate ideas, no matter what area of work they’re in. My argument is that the new economy will favor polymathic thinking, unlike preceding economic eras that favored specialization. The philosophy of praising and marketing only a few subjects while trivializing the others is still strongly remnant of the first industrial revolution’s ethos.

Photo by Ahsan S. on Unsplash

19th-century views on economics and education didn’t value creative and cross-disciplinary capabilities. It placed the growth of the corporation above the growth of its constituent parts: the individuals. It was designed to create cogs to be placed in a machine, and it was incredibly efficient at its job.

The elevation of STEM maintains that 19th-century methodology. It’s the assembly line worker’s manifesto wrapped and presented in new packaging. It looks at the direct skill requirements for contemporary economic needs and ignores subjects and skillsets that seem less important on the surface.

But the economy has changed. The demand is no longer for people that are really good at specialized repetitive tasks, but instead, individuals that can innovate in an ever-changing cultural climate and be creative in the midst of uncertainty.