WHAT OTHER CLASSES SHOULD I TAKE?

A number of years ago I went to a seminar at which people from technical industries discussed what skills they wanted their new employees to have.

It was a real eye opener for me. I thought they would say they wanted the new employees to have a detailed knowledge of quantum mechanics or synthetic organic chemistry or so on.

But that was not the case at all. Those doing the hiring figured that any new employee who graduated with a degree in chemistry or physics or biology will be technically skilled and, what they didn’t know, they can learn easily enough.

It is in other areas that the vast majority of new employees were uninformed and unskilled. Let me point out to you that you are going to be competing with many other recent graduates for that first real job and that it is more likely than not that that job will be in the private sector (aka business.) If you have training in the following areas, you might be considered more suitable for that job. So, if you have a opening for a class, you might wish to consider taking one in one of these areas.

Here are the areas:

a) communication. Most recent graduates cannot communicate. They cannot write. They cannot speak. When asked to make a presentation, they mess it up. When asked to write, they do things such as use ‘advantage’ as a verb. Both of these make a poor impression.

A very useful class to take is public speaking, particularly one that emphasizes extemporaneous presentations. Can you stand on your feet and defend your position? See that guy over there, he can.

Another useful class, that may well end up helping you get a job, is a writing class. Any class in which there is a lot of writing would be useful but it would be if you could find one that specializes in non-fiction writing.

b) business. Many science graduates, particularly those with advanced degrees, have no idea why the company they are working is in business. Not when or where or what but WHY is it in business.

It is in business to make a PROFIT.

If it did not make a profit, it would go out of business.

One of the participants at the seminar gave an example that illustrated how ‘out of it’ some new hires are. A newly hired Ph. D. chemist said he could increase the yield of a chemical the company produced from 70% to 95%. That looks good, doesn’t it. What the new chemist totally failed to consider was that the process that gave a 95% yield cost $1400 per pound while the process that gave a 70% yield cost only $8 per pound.

So, assuming that your parents were not CEO’s and that you are a babe in the woods regarding how a business operates, what classes should you consider.

An introduction to business course. Know what the difference between a line and a staff position is. Discover the mysteries of the bill of lading. Why do assests equal equity plus liabilties?

An economics course. Economics comes in two flavors - macro (world wide) and micro (business wide). It is a big help to know at least the basics of one of these.

A class in the operation of a suite of business software. If you can’t use EXCEL, WORD and POWERPOINT by the time you graduate college, you are in deep doo-doo.

c) statistics. John measured the mass of the sample as 13.4 ± 1.7 g. Two weeks later Mary measured it as 12.4 ± 2.1 g. Did the sample lose mass over the interval?

You say YES?

Go to the back of the room because you failed to do an analysis of variance.

EVERY science major should take a class in statistics, which is going to be used a lot more often than calculus. And EVERY science major who wants to be able to make an impression on the boss should take a class in the analysis of variance.

d) computer programming. Not every question can be answered by EXCEL and you should know how to program a computer. It really doesn’t matter what computer language you learn since it will be out of date when you actually have to program the computer. But you should have some experience with programming. JAVA, C++, whatever.

e) other. It doesn’t hurt to have some practical knowledge of electronics but the other stuff above is more imporant.