Building data skills for work-ready graduates
In a fast-changing economy, the ability to draw insights from data is crucial for success. Universities and employers must equip students with this vital skill
Although the US has some of the highest-ranking educational institutions in the world, employers often voice concern about a skills gap when graduates enter the workplace. One of the key skills that will equip a new generation of employees to make decisions in a fast-moving environment is the ability to handle data. A panel of experts from academia, industry and technology discussed how to bridge this gap at a recent Times Higher Education webinar, hosted in partnership with analytics automation platform Alteryx.
Sridhar Sundaram, dean of the College of Business and Economics at California State University Fullerton (CSUF), believes this can be embedded across the curriculum, not just in the “obvious” disciplines. “We have a school of accountancy that caters not only to the big four firms but also to many local ones that work with data on a continuous basis,” Sundaram said. “The key question for us is how we can help our students to become more savvy with technology and use data to inform their decision-making, to see if something is within parameters or whether there are red flags.” The university has been working with Alteryx to get students used to data visualisation and how to build insights from data.
“Data itself is not the silver bullet,” said Jason Belland, global vice-president for SparkED at Alteryx. “It’s about people being able to ask the interesting questions and being able to challenge what they see. Then it comes back to storytelling around what they’re seeing in that data and collaborating to get things done. For the student, it becomes part of a holistic education experience where they are ready to provide value to an organisation on their first day of employment.”
CSUF partners with a number of businesses on placements so students can work on real-world problems and understand how data drives decisions. One of these partners is Amazon Transportation Services (ATS), where data analytics is used to support labour planning. Sarah Eisenberg leads a team of 20 managers and analysts at ATS and, when recruiting new talent, she looks for experience of using data in this way. “In my experience, the software and tools are all learnable. I am looking for graduates who understand how to use that data, who have used data to truly discern insights and make recommendations,” she said.
Lifelong learners who wish to boost their careers are good candidates for building data-analytics skills too, as are experts in other industry areas. “In marketing, for example, how do you measure the impact of a social media influencer when there’s so much data available?” asked Sundaram. Giving people the confidence to solve commercial problems inspires them to delve further, Eisenberg said: “It takes one model helping someone to answer a question and they’re ready to solve the next one. They want to help their leaders become smarter.”
The panel:
- Jason Belland, global vice-president, SparkED, Alteryx
- Sarah Eisenberg, senior programme manager for transportation labour planning, Amazon Transportation Services
- Julia Gilmore, branded content manager (EMEA and the Americas), Times Higher Education (chair)
- Sridhar Sundaram, dean, College of Business and Economics, California State University Fullerton
Find out more about Alteryx.
