How to Help Students Thrive in Their Future Careers

As our society evolves at an increasing rate, those in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields are set to play an even greater role in helping shape the world around us.

Among the many paths available to students is a STEM career at the Department of Defense (DoD), America’s largest government agency tasked with keeping our country safe. The DoD provides opportunities for students, parents and educators to learn how the DoD workforce uses creativity and STEM skills to accelerate innovation in leading technologies. The agency:

• Contributes to modernization efforts in advanced manufacturing, robotics, artificial intelligence and biotechnology 
   
• Offers civilian careers that allow employees to innovate and solve real-world challenges 
   
• Provides mentorship opportunities for students across the country, designed to inspire and encourage the next generation of STEM leaders 
   

In our white paper, “How to Prepare Students for the Jobs of the Future,” we explore what the future of work might look like, informed by a report published in 2023 by the World Economic Forum.

We invite you to read an excerpt of this paper below.

How Can We Help Students Thrive in a Changing Economy?

While today’s economy is experiencing a paradigm shift similar to the Industrial Revolution, the skills needed to thrive within it are markedly different. This remains a core message of the biannual “Future of Jobs Report” published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), an independent international organization that “engages business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

As Saadia Zahidi, managing director of WEF, stated in the preface to the 2023 edition of this report, today’s labor market is particularly difficult to navigate, led by the emergence of generative artificial intelligence and made even more complex by geopolitical disruptions and environmental pressures. To provide the most accurate picture of what the future might bring, WEF compiled data from 803 companies around the world that collectively employ more than 11.3 million workers across 27 different industries, making it the most comprehensive Future of Jobs report to date.

Though predicting the future is an imperfect exercise, this report represents some of the most respected insights into our ever-evolving economy. A few key highlights from the report are as follows:

Expect Technology to Drive Business Transformation

Respondents believe technology adoption will remain an essential driver of business transformation over the course of the next five years. To that end, over 85% of the organizations surveyed “identify increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and broadening digital access as the trends most likely to drive transformation in their organization.”

Among these “frontier technologies” is the mainstream emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). According to one University of Oxford study, AI could put 47% of U.S. jobs at risk including many white-collar jobs that have so far proved to be more resistant to technology-related job loss.

In an article published in The Atlantic, “How ChatGPT Will Destabilize White-Collar Work,” Annie Lowrey spoke with Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Autor, who explains how AI’s ability to improvise and improve over time makes it categorically different from previous disruptive categories.

“Before, progress was linear and predictable,” Autor explained. “It followed the procedure; it didn’t learn and it didn’t improvise.” Now, however, ChatGPT and other generative AI programs like it do both.

Lowrey notes that it likely will take some time before AI is integrated fully into a business’ day-to-day operations. For example, while groundbreaking technologies including electric lights, the circuit and rudimentary electric motors were developed in the early 1800s, it took another 100 years before all of these contributed to a rise in America’s gross domestic product. Similarly, though computers were commercially available in the early 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1990s that worker productivity began to rise nationwide.

One could argue, however, that because we already have the technological infrastructure in place to use AI, its widespread adoption could occur faster than previous technologies. In fact, according to one study, all industries already are using AI to some degree. The most popular use case for product creation is taking place in the financial services industry, where over 30% of respondents in that industry report using AI.

Additionally, according to the 2023 Future of Jobs report, many of the top 10 fastest growing jobs involve aspects that stand to benefit from AI integration.

Download the Full White Paper for Free Today

To read this white paper in its entirety, visit our website.