5 professions not taught in universities

09:00, 17.11.2021

Or how to get the most out of higher education

Any university employee, and even more so the head, has heard more than once that they teach “the wrong thing” at the university, and some professions are not taught at all. It's true — new professions appear almost every day, university education lasts at least 4 years, and the regulation of education is even more conservative. It is difficult for future students and their parents to guess what will be in demand in 4 years — after all, even large enterprises find it difficult to predict their need for personnel for such a period, and they have much more information about the future of the industry than schoolchildren and their parents do. But this does not mean that the university will not be able to teach new and sought-after professions at all. Anna Svirina, the vice-rector for science and development of the TISBI University of Management, considers in her author's column for Realnoe Vremya where and how to study them. She does this using the example of 5 top professions of today, about which few people heard a few years ago.

Marketing Analyst

Today there are programmes that train analysts for the field of marketing, but they appeared relatively recently. Therefore, a current student who can become a marketing analyst should have to enroll either in the marketing department of the areas related to management and economics, or in the IT direction and understand that in data analysis he wants to specialise in consumer preferences.

Probably, in the first case, it is a little more difficult for him: although for admission to economic specialties you need to pass the Unified State Exam in specialised mathematics, traditionally in universities mathematical training of economists is conducted on a simplified principle, andbut in fact, it is extremely necessary in work. Therefore, a future marketing analyst should have studied attentively to mathematics and statistics lessons, and his colleague, who entered the IT specialty, should have taken economics classes.
Internet of Things Engineer

Smart home appliances, smart home — elements that are entering our lives more and more often. We are no longer surprised by ubiquitous motion sensors or street lights that adapt to daylight. Engineers designing these systems three years ago had to go either to IT specialties and focus not only on learning programming, but also devote a lot of time to hardware, or enroll in instrumentation or radio electronics in the hope that in these areas there would be an opportunity to study the software part of this technique.

If the related specialisation did not happen, the current third-year IT student for a career in the Internet of Things will have to study sensors and microcontrollers independently.
Data scientist

In 2021, universities were already recruiting students for this specialty, but five years ago, big data analysts were only talked about in the IT industry, and there were few such vacancies.

Future data analysts study, as a rule, in IT specialties, where they deeply study technical data analysis tools (for example, R or Python). At the same time, it is important for a data scientist to be able not only to process data, but also to clearly put hypotheses on which data will be collected — and these are skills rather from the sphere of logic or philosophy or the organisation of scientific activity. But IT specialist are usually almost not taught this.
Actuary

To become a specialist in risk calculation, the future actuary had to choose the direction of Economics or Statistics, master the mathematical apparatus, first of all, probability theory and mathematical modeling, develop it while studying econometrics, and then supplement his knowledge with methods of constructing hypotheses, that is, a scientific approach.

And of course, to have an internship in risk management departments, preferably in banks and insurance companies, where the greatest experience in risk modeling has been accumulated. However, it is quite difficult to find such opportunities, and the actuary will have to master the practical basics of the profession already at the workplace.
Methodologist of online courses

Given the speed of development of EdTech segment, methodologists are becoming one of the most sought-after professions. The theoretical basis for this profession is obtained in pedagogical universities, but it is also important to understand the specifics of online work, and this is rather the prerogative of IT specialties. Such set of knowledge and skills is quite difficult to obtain both at a pedagogical university and at the IT department of a university.

In addition to those described, product managers, information security analysts, testers, UI/UX designers, marketing managers, game designers and many other specialties are in demand in the modern world, which you will not find in the reference books for university applicants. You can not get lost in this diversity only by looking at the disciplines that you or your children will study — and as you learn, you will require teachers to give not only general information, but also show how modern tools of the chosen field work. Then education will put yesterday's student higher than his colleagues who have formed only skills in short-term courses. Although they will be needed all their lives, because almost any profession chosen today may cease to exist in ten years.