Full STEAM Ahead: The winning skills combination for career success today
The global focus around competitive skills for career success has shifted from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to STEAM – the ‘a’ being representative of the Arts.
November 9, 2015
Two decades after the acronym STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) became commonplace in conversations around competitive skills for career success, the global focus has shifted from STEM to STEAM – the ‘a’ being representative of the Arts.
This expanded perspective on what’s critical to economic growth is an important one, particularly for professionals currently working in tech.
Detractors argue the Arts adjunct will distract education policy makers and curriculum designers from the all-important focus on STEM education, which is where global skills shortages are currently highest.
As a recent post on Slate points out, however: “The STEAM movement isn’t about spending 20 percent less time on science, technology, engineering, and math to make room for art.
“It’s about sparking students’ imagination and helping students innovate through hands-on STEM projects.
“And perhaps most importantly, it’s about applying creative thinking and design skills to these STEM projects so that students can imagine a variety of ways to use STEM skills into adulthood.”
Closer to home, what exactly does that look like on the ground? In SA, we’re seeingthe rise of 5 fields of study and practice that speak to this unique combination of technology and the arts:
- UX DesignUsers today find themselves more than three decades into the digital revolution. Your average household computer has capabilities that far exceed even the most sophisticated supercomputers of the last century.So, how is it possible that users, most of whom never received any sort of formalised computer literacy training, can use these complex devices every day for multiple purposes? Design is the key.Enter the User Experience (UX) Designer: a technological artist whose job it is to stay ahead of the curve in order to become responsible for the experience of countless users, from every corner of the world, using whatever device they have at hand, to perform a massive selection of objectives, on platforms that evolve at an exponential rate, according to design principles that are constantly in flux.
- Digital Marketing Management
There’s an old adage in the advertising industry that says that 50% of the money you spend works and the other 50% doesn’t.The problem is that nobody can pinpoint exactly where that money is spent well, and where it is wasted.The beauty of the online marketing environment is that you can see exactly what your ad spend is doing for you.Which is why creatives who are skilled in the areas of digital analytics are more likely to advance to management roles right now, and for the foreseeable future. - Technopreneurship
The combination of technological innovation with sound entrepreneurial understanding is perhaps one of the most powerful and profitable tools in the current knowledge-based global economy.But at the moment, the vast majority of technological startups and ventures fail because they lack the tools and expertise needed bring their idea to fruition, or create the market value they need to be sustainable.As the name implies, Technopreneurship as a STEAM discipline aims to teach its students how to be innovators and entrepreneurs who specialise in theprojectised application of technology-based systems in unique and commercially viable endeavours.
If you’re looking to carve out a powerful career path in 2016 – one where you have the option to be your own boss, you can’t go wrong with an education that includes science, technology, engineering, or mathematics – as well as the arts, in some form or another.
This kind of cross-disciplinary education is going to be the key to future success.
This article was published in partnership with UCT and GetSmarter, online education provider. UCT in partnership with GetSmarter, offer online Postgraduate Diplomas.
Click here to download their full 2015 report on The State of Online Education in SA.
This article was published in partnership with GetSmarter.
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