10 Examples Of Technical Skills Every Good Student Needs To Learn
If there’s one thing that recent years have shown, it’s that nothing is set in stone.
The COVID-19 pandemic ravaged some industries while giving others a much-needed boost. Meanwhile, the rise of TikTok as the next social media giant created countless new jobs and opportunities. Things are always changing, industries are constantly getting disrupted, and we need to prepare our students for that.
In this article, we discuss the top 10 technical skills every student needs to learn in order to thrive in an increasingly uncertain world. But first, let’s talk about how we derive this list.
How did we identify the different types of skills students need to learn?
When coming up with our list, we asked ourselves two things.
First, which skills are highly sought after today? For this, we identified more practical skills based on workforce trends and needs to help students stay relevant.
Next, we identified skills the students of today lack in order to grow into well-functioning adults. These include skills needed to help take care of their emotional and physical well-being, something that is greatly underemphasised in our society.
Without going into too many details, here is a quick preview of the skills we think students need to learn:
Nutrition planning
Fitness
Financial literacy
Corporate communication
Languages
Data analytics
Data science
UX design
Content writing
Statistics
Here are the top 10 technical skills that every good student needs to learn
1) Nutrition planning
The good old saying “you are what you eat” has never been more applicable.
Termed the curse of the modern world by some, the abundance of accessible and affordable food has inevitably led to the overconsumption of calories. The obesity epidemic has ravaged many countries as the world experienced a paradigm shift from sustenance agriculture to mass production of high-calorie processed foods.
Obesity-related illnesses have been linked to increased rates of absenteeism and presenteeism. Having good knowledge of nutrition and planning your meals can go a long way in keeping our students healthy and thriving in the workforce of the future.
This, of course, also spares them from the pains of chronic illnesses linked to poor diets.
2) Fitness
Eating well isn’t enough to keep us healthy for the long haul. The human body wasn’t designed to live a sedentary lifestyle.
Desk-bound jobs worsen our posture and can cause or worsen musculoskeletal disorders. The lack of physical activity has been shown to be linked to heart disease.
Strength training and conditioning, meanwhile, have been linked to improved heart health, stronger bones, and improved moods. The benefits of physical activity and the skills needed to design and execute a programme cannot be understated.
3) Financial literacy
Recent years have seen some of the most astounding inflation rates in human history.
No thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chains were disrupted, which led to a rise in inflation across the world. In Singapore, inflation rates hit a nine-year high when they reached 4.3% in February 2022. Money is decreasing in its value as we speak.
This isn’t the only finance-related lesson the pandemic has taught us. Around the world, millions were being furloughed or laid off as companies took a huge economic hit. The notion of a stable job is no longer relevant.
Students should learn more about investing their money not only because of the need to combat inflation but also because they should have some spare liquid assets in case they lose their main source of income.
4) Corporate communication
A well-crafted email in the right tone can go a long way in avoiding miscommunication. Miscommunication is often the cause of workplace conflict and can lead to disastrous consequences.
Professional connections play a crucial part in one’s success, and communicating well with your co-workers is an essential component in building and maintaining these relationships.
Corporate communication is one of the technical skills that students need to learn to help them navigate the workspace.
5) Languages
The demand for multilingual employees has increased. Between 2020 and 2021, the number of job postings recruiting bilingual employees increased by 30%.
This comes as no surprise as many companies continue to expand to foreign parts of the world. Shopee, for instance, recently expanded its operations into Brazil and has even displaced Argentina’s Mercado Libre as the top shopping app in 2021.
Closer to home, Thai tech startups are growing so quickly that they are projected to account for 35% of the country’s GDP by 2025. Learning Thai doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now.
The number of opportunities presented by rapidly growing emerging economies is seemingly endless. And being multilingual gives you that competitive edge.
6) Data analytics
Data today is the world’s most ubiquitous and valuable resource.
Media buyers use it to make informed ad bidding decisions. Academics use them to draw scientific conclusions. HR managers use it to make promotion decisions.
But raw data is not helpful at all. It needs to be processed and analysed to derive any form of insight. This is why data analysts are in such high demand.
Signing up for data analytics courses can help students learn valuable technical skills and provide them with an added edge and stand out in a sea of job seekers.
7) Data science
While data analytics is focused on analysing datasets to derive insights, data science is involved in creating and organising that very set of data points.
Becoming a data scientist is an increasingly popular career path as more companies seek to utilise the vast amount of data available. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of jobs will increase by about 28% by 2026.
Taking up data science courses in Singapore can definitely give our students a competitive edge on the global stage.
8) User experience (UX) design
The corporate world has gained a greater understanding of UX design and how investing in UX design teams can greatly affect their revenue and overall business goals.
This, along with the growing tech startup scene in Singapore, the growing demand for UX designers is inevitable.
Designing a product that not only satisfies user needs but is aesthetically pleasing is an essential skill if you want to thrive in the modern workforce. A study by Adobe revealed that 73% of surveyed organisations would prioritise hiring UX designers in the next five years.
It’s a great idea for students to take UX courses to give themselves an idea of what the field is like. They may even end up liking it and joining the field.
9) Content writing
The pandemic has devastated many retail brands.
Recently, more companies have been trying to cement their online presence to avoid the same fate. And when it comes to establishing a presence in the online world, content is king.
It’s needed to help your target audience find your brand online through organic search. And the best way to do this is to become adept at writing search-optimised content to improve the odds of your web pages being found on the first page of Google’s search results.
The relevance of content writing in SEO is undeniable. Becoming skilled at writing search-optimised content will help our students stay relevant as more businesses undergo digital transformation.
10) Statistics
Understanding basic concepts in statistics is an underrated skill.
Too many a time have we seen people saying or believing irrational things just because ‘a study said so’. Having a deeper knowledge of statistics like mean and median and the skill to interpret them helps our students critique the content they read from various sources.
These concepts form the foundation of many scientific studies, and knowing how to interpret them helps develop critical thinking and prevents blind consumption of information.
Learning new things helps students better prepare for the future!
And there you have it!
We hope this list has provided you with some ideas on the different types of skills for students to learn to help them thrive in an increasingly uncertain world.
If there’s one thing that’s constant in this world, it’s change. And these technical skills help prepare our students to stay relevant for whatever’s about to come.
