A World Without Skills

A fascinating piece appeared in The Wall Street Journal concerning the skill levels of new hires. Or, rather, the lack of skills, even in fields such as engineering.

Firms are taking in new graduates only to discover that while they might know much, they can’t actually do anything, not even basic things that every engineer is supposed to know. The reason is that most of these kids have only done Zoom classes. They have no practical experience.

Think of this. The freshman class of 2020 got hit with virus mania in the spring, and in-person classes ended. Their sophomore year was awful, just staring at a screen. When they came back, if they did, they had to wear masks and get jabbed and jabbed again. Their junior year was more of the same nonsense, with off-and-on classes but seriously truncated experiences. Then they graduated.

It all serves as a reminder. Skills come from what we do, including screw-ups, failures, adaptations, and gradually getting better at something, anything, whatever it is. Without hands-on experience, the only skill you learn is rote memorization and gaming the system. To be sure, today’s college graduates are very good at that, but their skills are severely lacking in many practical areas of life.

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