10 Skills All Students Need to Be Successful in Life
Educational institutes are built to impart students with knowledge and skills. But it will not lead to students’ wholesome development if the teaching is limited to imparting skills like memorization and recall. An individual needs a lot more than that to succeed in life. While today’s educational institutes are focused on offering a more well-rounded learning environment, there are many other skills that all students need to be successful in life that goes beyond college and universities.
Learning can be perceived from anywhere. We live in this digital era that is continuously evolving. So to keep up with that, here are the top 10 21st century skills for students to learn without being bound by classrooms, books, and curriculums.
1. Observational Skills
To have good observational skills means being aware of your surroundings, gathering information, and applying it when necessary. Observation helps you learn things from reality. By being observant, your brain is continuously trying to absorb and analyze information. It affects your thought process and enables you to read your environment while passively observing.
2. Critical Thinking Skills
At every stage of life, we have to make decisions. Be it choosing your favourite flavour of lollypop as a kid or your major in school as a student, critical thinking skills help you make more precise and calculated decisions. Furthermore, they help you indulge in logical reasoning and build problem-solving skills. As a student, you need critical thinking skills to make decisions throughout your academic life that will eventually shape your future in the professional field of work. It also helps you develop intellectually and enhances your creativity.
3. Research Skills
The goal of developing research skills should not be limited to achieving good grades in your academic projects. Research helps you stay curious, exposed to new knowledge from time to time, helps you find answers to varied questions or hypotheses, and stay updated. Research can be on general topics or on a particular field of knowledge. Developing high research skills will help you find answers to all your questions and learn about people and their cultures. This skill further helps you acquire another set of skills as you are continuously exploring various subjects and collecting information.
4. Networking Skills
Networking has a range of benefits that help you move ahead in life. It always helps to know the right people. Through networking, you can get into innate circles, join a community, and be exposed to people with different kinds of expertise. You can start developing networking skills right when you are in school. Building contacts and relationships with people can get you places. That is a true fact! However, don’t limit your networking skills to just meeting people in person. Online networking has taken the world by storm. Use social media platforms to network with people from your field of interest and from across the world. They can introduce you to new ideas, opportunities, or even skills.
5. Collaboration Skills
It is good to be able to do things independently, but in life, you need to move ahead with other people. You will need to work alongside your colleagues, so it’s best that you start by working along with your fellow peers in schools. By working in collaboration, you are learning to be patient, tolerant, and more empathetic towards other people’s thoughts and ideas. You learn to co-exist. And that is one skill that has gotten humans so far in evolution.
6. Digital Skills
Digital skills have high value and add to your college applications as well as work resumes. You should try to learn as many sets of digital skills as possible. It could be learning how to use excel, building presentations, or digital marketing. Digitization has expanded tenfold in the past decade, and it will continue to. Hence, you must adapt to it and keep learning digital skills like online searching, emailing, programming, etc.
7. Technical Skills
As a student, you may or may not have clarity about your professional goals. Either way, it always helps to learn technical skills. If you know what field you wish to excel in, you should start learning the required technical skills while you are still in school. But even if you don’t have that clarity, you can use your research skills to find out about fields of your interest and the technical skills required for the same. It always helps to start early.
8. Communication Skills
It cannot be emphasised enough that good communication skills can get you far ahead in life. It helps you put yourself out there. You learn to convey your thoughts appropriately. You need to work on your verbal as well as non-communication skills. One of the important aspects of this skill is that it also develops good listening skills. That’s how you will be able to carry on two-way communication.
9. Time Management Skills
In school and in life, you will always have your plate full. Sometimes you will need to choose your priorities, but most of the time you will just need effective time management skills. This skillset helps you with personal management and organization. If you aim to always stay occupied and in action, then good time management skills will help you accomplish your goals.
10. Leadership Skills
At some point, every individual has to take the responsibility to lead, and when you find yourself in that position, good leadership skills will help you do an excellent job. To be a good leader means maintaining integrity, being there for your team, working together, and delegating rightful credit to your teammates. As a leader, you are not just thinking about yourself but also about your teammates as individuals and as a team.
To achieve these life-altering skills, you need to start on the right foot, and that can be done by engaging in learning in school. Pearson offers blended learning solutions that not only help you develop academically, but also let you explore a new dimension of online learning. Schools are the right place to explore your learning approaches, and Pearson is the right platform for the same.