Contradictheory: Degrees open doors, skills keep them open

While getting their child into Oxford is many a parent's dream, it might be better to stop and think if such institutions can prepare students for a world that is already unpredictable now and will only become more so in the next decade. — Pixabay

While speaking to someone in charge of admissions at a private school in Malaysia, I asked what parents worried about the most. Was it discipline? Extracurricular activities? The quality of the food in the dining hall?

Of course, being Asian, the top concern is academics. But beyond grades, many parents have a bigger question: Could the school guarantee their child a place at Oxbridge?

For the uninitiated, “Oxbridge” is shorthand for Oxford and Cambridge, two of the most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom. And it’s understandable why parents would dream of seeing their child walk through those hallowed halls. A degree from them is a golden ticket that fast-tracks job applications and moves CVs to the top of the pile. For example, 16% of the 2016 analyst class at Morgan Stanley came from Oxbridge, the same proportion that went to the more financially focused London School of Economics.

However, let’s be clear: getting into Oxbridge is not easy. Statistically, it’s brutal – Oxford reports that it receives over 23,000 applications for just 3,300 places each year. Straight As in A-Levels are the baseline, and even then, they won’t necessarily get you in.

Do you know that person who can walk into a dinner party and start talking passionately about something – even if it’s as niche as Japanese pottery – and hold the whole room’s attention? That’s my friend who went to both Cambridge and Oxford. She wasn’t just academically brilliant, she also had an intellectual curiosity beyond what was in the textbooks. (She’s now a curator at a top British museum specialising in – you guessed it – Japanese art.)

One of my own Oxford entrance interviews was a discussion of how one could infer the existence of integers and rational numbers through the gradual application of simple rules. As a mathematician, I found it fascinating. Even now, I still use that conversation as a way to gauge whether a student is genuinely interested in the subject.

The professors conducting Oxbridge entrance interviews aren’t just testing whether you can handle academic rigour, they’re also looking for curiosity and enthusiasm to explore ideas beyond what’s required.

I feel that many Asian parents would consider this sort of focused, particular interest as something frivolous that is removed from the real world. They want their child to secure a good job, not waste their time staring out of an ivory tower. Yet, while a top-tier degree can set some on a straight, golden path to a successful career, the reality is that career paths rarely follow a neat, predictable trajectory. Life throws up many strange attractors along the way.

For example, although I started as a mathematics student, I then became a consultant, a journalist, a researcher, and a writer. Did my Oxford degree help? Yes – but not because of what I studied. It helped because it gave me confidence, the ability to make connections, and it conferred a certain level of credibility.

I was asked what soft skills are most relevant in today’s workforce. My immediate answer was communication and analytical skills (if only because I found I had to learn the former to persuade people who were making decisions without the benefit of the latter!).

The reality of the modern workforce is that many of today’s most in-demand jobs didn’t even exist 20 years ago: Artificial intelligence engineers, data analysts, even digital marketers. The future is unpredictable and while a prestigious degree opens doors, it won’t keep you relevant forever.

To all those parents pushing their kids to do Oxbridge (or Ivy League, or whatever prestigious yet difficult to get into university there is), I would say it’s worth pausing a moment to consider what such institutions don’t teach your child.

The most obvious is where will they learn their “street smarts”? The soft skills I alluded to earlier can only be developed if you are placed in a real-life situation and have to go beyond the books to find a solution.

“Empathy” is another skill that I’m not quite sure is necessarily what you get from a top university. Former British prime minister Boris Johnson is an Oxford graduate, yet he reportedly underestimated the Covid-19 threat while in office, and also deliberately misled the public about literally partying behind closed doors while the country was in lockdown. Perhaps Oxbridge should reconsider inculcating soft skills into their curriculum.

The best way to develop these abilities isn’t through lectures or exams, but to experience life. I personally believe if you can understand what a child is passionate about, then you can lead him or her to real-life experiences that tap into that passion. It could be a project, or a temp job, or just to travel and see new parts of the world. You hope that in the process their passion helps them overcome the tough obstacles, and they will learn resilience and how to handle the unexpected.

I even suggested to a group of A-Level students recently that they might consider not going to university, given what they learn now may be obsolete in five years.

Ultimately, where you study isn’t the only thing that shapes who you become. So instead of asking if a school can guarantee Oxbridge, maybe the better question is: Can it prepare your child for an uncertain, unpredictable future?

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.