How to prepare our students to be professionals in an uncertain future?
How can we prepare our students to working life in 2070? What kind of knowledge, what skills, which competences will be needed? Paula Schönach, Senior Advisor in Sustainability at the School of Business shared her thoughts about the topic in a panel at the Global Forum, (Principles of Responsible Management Education) held on 18 June 2024. She emphasized that educators at business schools need to be mindful of equipping our students with the necessary skills for a future characterized by change and uncertainty.
Suggested by AI, 'sustainability consultant' is the most important, number one profession for business students in 2070. ‘I believe AI is wrong here. I don’t think that sustainability should be anymore something to be consulted on, something separate that needs to be added into business thinking. Instead, I’m convinced that in 40 years’ time, sustainability is the core of business and every professional needs to be a sustainability expert. Business is sustainability and sustainability is business. And not only tweaking existing businesses to be less harmful, but to correct the harms that already have been done,’ Paula Schönach says.
People skills can be trained and learnt
Paula Schönach says that we often excel in teaching e.g. analytical skills, but that’s not enough: additionally, our graduates need the ability to cooperate in working life. ‘Where we need continuously to improve is the ways we work, ideate and tackle challenges together, across disciplines and fields of expertise. It is key to harnessing businesses to create and to contribute to sustainability. Interpersonal collaboration, human-human interaction, the soft skills are needed more. These are skills that can and should be trained and learnt.’
‘We also need to be able to adapt to the constant change and to be courageous to drive the indispensable change for sustainability, we need imagination for the future. This means that we need to think of the unthinkable, cherish the uncertainty and not to get anxious about that. Uncertainty enables many different futures.’
Would you like to discuss more the futures thinking competencies in business studies?
If yes, send Paula an email. Thank you!
Sustainability at the School of Business
In the School of Business, we focus on advancing sustainability through research, in teaching and social influence. In the first phase, information related to sustainability in our teaching has been...
Read more news
Aalto University and Bocconi University to launch a double degree programme in strategic and creative marketing
The first cohort, 10 students admitted through Aalto and 10 through Bocconi, will start their studies in autumn 2027
Student exchange in Europe? Unite! can take you there
Aalto is a member of Unite!, a European university alliance that gives students the opportunity to internationalise their degrees both online and in-person. Join the webinar to find out more.
Opinion: Finnish language learning should be integrated into degree programs
In this opinion piece, Rebekka Nylund, an expert at the University of Helsinki, and Elisa Räsänen, a university lecturer at Aalto University, reflect on what they have learned from the EU-co-funded Language-supported Knowledge Pathways project and offer suggestions on how and why learning Finnish could be integrated into the structures of higher education degree programs.