Transcriber: Mirjana Čutura Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Many students struggle every day.
Many students struggle through the field and struggle to do their work.
The main idea's we have problems
with students trying to understand and meet their requirements for education.
So, many students struggle
and try to understand the different areas in transportation.
And the main thing that I try to understand here
is what the main reason for this struggle is.
And the first thing that came up to my mind
is maybe the material that we give to the students
is not good enough to help them prepare for the job market.
But we use the best material available in the world,
we use the best books, we use the best teaching methods,
and we improve our courses on a regular basis.
Then I start thinking maybe our facilities are not good enough
to help the students prepare for the job market.
But again,
we have the best facilities in the world:
we have the best classrooms, we have the best labs,
the best equipment, the best software.
And we have funds to buy anything the students need.
Then I start thinking about our students.
Maybe our students are not smart enough
to prepare themselves and understand the job market?
But I deal with our students on a day-to-day basis,
and I find them extremely smart,
I find them as smart as any other student in any other country,
if not smarter.
Then I thought maybe they are smart,
but they're not motivated to learn the material?
But again, I work with them on a day-to-day basis.
I find them extremely smart, very hard-working,
very competitive among them,
and they will fight for every single point.
So where is the problem then?
Why do we have this gap between education and the job market?
And after a lot of thinking,
I came up with the conclusion that the problem is in the way
our students think about the education process.
Our students have different goals from the education process,
other than preparing themselves for the job market.
And let me tell you the top three goals for the students.
The first and most important goal for the students is the degree,
the degree itself.
The students want to go through this process,
finish this process, and have the degree.
"If I can have the degree in my hand, everything is going to be fine."
The second goal for the students is,
"How can I get this degree with the maximum possible GPA?"
"If I can have the degree with the high GPA,
I'm going to be really successful."
Then the third goal for the student is,
"How can I get this degree with the maximum possible GPA
and the minimum possible effort?"
"If I can have the degree, high GPA, minimum effort,
that would be the best."
And I call these three goals the fake education goals
compared to real education,
where the main goal for the students should be to prepare themselves
for the job market.
So the first question you want to ask me is,
"How did you come up with this conclusion?
Do you have any proof?"
Let me give you some examples.
Do you know how students select their courses
if a student has to select one of four courses?
If you really want to know,
all you have to do is just go on Facebook, or Twitter,
or one of these websites
that the students use to share information,
and you will see this very famous question,
"I have to take one of these four courses,
would you, please, tell me which one is the easiest?"
They will not ask for the best course,
they will not ask for the most useful course,
they will not ask for the course
that's going to help them after they graduate,
but they will ask for the easiest course.
Why the easiest course?
Because this is the course that's going help them
to achieve their goals.
These are the goals that are going to help them
to achieve their fake education goals:
degree, maximum GPA, and minimum effort.
What if a student has to take a specific course?
Then you will see this other famous question:
"I have to take this course,
but it is offered by Professor X, Professor Y, and Professor Z.
Would you, please, tell me which one is the easiest?"
They will not ask for which one teaches better,
which one is going to help me understand the material,
which one is going to help me like the material,
but they will ask for the easiest.
The first question I receive on the first day of class,
"Is it easy to get a good grade in this course?"
They would not ask me "What is this course about?
What are we supposed to learn this semester?
How is this course going to help me in the future?"
But they will ask about the grade.
The second question on the first day of class:
"If I'm one or two points away from the next grade,
would you increase my score to move me from one grade to the next?"
So everything is around the fake education goals.
So the next question you want to ask me is,
"What exactly is the problem here?
The students are aiming for the degree.
The students are aiming for the high GPA.
These are all great goals.
Where is the problem?"
Let me tell you how this process works.
At the beginning of every semester,
the students will start motivated, energized, and ready to learn.
Then we start feeding the students with information
week after week, week after week.
And the students will learn their material,
will study for their quizzes, will study for their exams,
they'll do their homework, they'll work on their projects
until the end of the semester.
By the end of the semester, their brain is full of information,
and then it's time for the final exam.
And when it's time for the final exam, the students will even work harder.
They will study hard, they will not sleep, they will come and ask questions,
they want to really finish strong.
Then they go through the final exam.
And once they go through the final exam,
for them, mission accomplished.
For them, they are done with this information.
For them, this material is not needed anymore.
So with their brain full,
they will open the valves,
and they will release this information out.
I even see students, right after the final exam,
that will leave their textbooks on the tables and leave.
These textbooks, that are full of information
full of highlights, full of underlines, full of notes,
are not needed anymore.
Then they keep repeating this process semester after semester,
semester after semester:
fill their brain with information, then release it at end of the semester,
fill, release, fill, release
until they go through the whole process,
until they finish the process,
until they achieve their goals:
they have the degree, and they have the high GPA.
And now it's time for phase two.
Now it's time for success.
Now it's time for the job market.
And at this time is when they start doing interviews.
Or if they're really lucky, they will start their first job.
And only then,
they find out that they need way more than the degree and the GPA
in order to succeed.
Only then, they find out that they need more skills.
Only then, they find out that they need the information.
Unfortunately, they don't have it.
Not because they didn't learn it, but because they did not retain it.
And this is where the problem is,
and this is where the gap is between education and the job market.
So the last question is, "What can we do about it?"
I believe we as instructors, we can help the students with two things.
The first and most important thing is that we need to talk about this problem.
We need to explain to the students what fake education is.
We need to explain to the students
the difference between fake education and real education.
And we need to explain to the students the consequences of fake education.
And we need to give them advice.
And I would like to start with myself here today.
I would like to give our students some advice.
What I really want to tell them is
there is nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all,
with aiming for the degree and aiming for the high GPA.
But what I really want to tell you is that these goals are not enough at all,
especially in this very competitive world.
These are great short-term goals but will really hurt you in the long term.
You're going to need way more goals than this
if you really want to succeed.
You're going to need to learn your material,
learn how to use a software, learn how to use a piece of equipment,
learn how to write a good report, learn how to do a good presentation.
You need to volunteer, you need to work on research,
you need to work part-time,
and even have to work for free if you have to.
You just have to make sure to gain some skills during the process.
Because, believe me, these skills are way more important
than a high GPA, for any company.
And this is why, until today, we still see companies that are willing to pay
two times and three times the salary of a local person
to bring someone from another country to move here to do the job.
Not because they're smarter than you,
not because they're more motivated than you,
but because they have more skills than you.
So make sure to gain some skills during this process.
The second thing that we can do as instructors:
We need to connect our students more with real life.
We need to explain to them
how this material can be used in real life.
We need to give them real life examples. We need to give them real life homework.
We need to give them real life projects.
We need to take them to the field. We need to take them to visit companies.
We need to invite professionals to our classrooms.
And we need to do all these things in all our courses.
We should not wait for the last year to do these things.
We should not wait for the graduation projects.
We should not wait for the practical training.
We need to all these things in all our courses, and from day one.
I believe that if we do these two things,
we can move many students from fake education to real education.
Thank you.
(Applause)