The beginning of higher education studies can be an overwhelming experience. Even though you have just started a whole new phase in your life, you are already looking a bit further: What will I do when I graduate? Moreover, new students are constantly bombarded with new knowledge. This can leave some students questioning what information is relevant in the future, what areas should they focus on and what past time activities are the most beneficial for their future careers. Thus, new students may feel pressure to focus solely on courses that seem directly relevant to their career aspirations or are held to high value. These choices are sometimes made at the expense of exploring other areas of interest.
In addition to questioning whether their studies will be useful when they graduate, students may, especially at first, focus only on so-called hard skills. They focus on memorizing topics, frameworks or formulas without questioning themselves, why am I actually supposed to learn this?
It is common to question whether some courses are overly theoretical or disconnected from real-life challenges. However, what sometimes goes unnoticed is that many courses provide a strong foundation for working in various fields. New students often expect to learn only hard skills. After all, mastering methodologies and concepts introduced at lectures feels fulfilling and like a clear path to a certain career.
However, soft skills are equally important, especially in consulting, where the ability to, for example, communicate effectively or work with people of various backgrounds can make or break a project. Throughout your educational road, you are constantly developing your soft skills without necessarily even realizing it. Teamwork, presenting, researching, summarizing, and scientific writing are all integral parts of studying, and these are the same skills that consulting requires. You must be able to summarize complex ideas into simple, actionable insights and present them in an articulate manner.
In consulting, delivering facts coherently is as important as understanding them. For example, you may have the best analysis, but if you cannot present it in a way that the client understands, the analysis loses its value. Consulting is as much about working with people as it is about working with problems.
Still, even if you are most likely going to make use of the soft skills you learn during your studies, what about everything else? How much anyone can leverage the concepts they gained from courses is individual, but these opportunities can arise at surprising times.
One day, in a lecture that one of us attended, the same topics were discussed that we were supposed to make the presentation of. By integrating the ideas from the lecture into the material, we were able to provide a presentation that resonated with the participants.
Here is an example of utilizing what you have learned at your job. We were tasked with creating materials for a business event held by BearingPoint. As the overall topic was not the most familiar to us, we initially struggled to even start. One day, in a lecture that one of us attended, the same topics were discussed that we were supposed to make the presentation of. By integrating the ideas from the lecture into the material, we were able to provide a presentation that resonated with the participants. This experience showcases how what you learn during your studies can be adapted to work-life problems.
The expectation is not that you enter the company knowing everything. Instead, we are encouraged to constantly develop ourselves, ask questions and participate as much as possible. Consulting is a field that values and requires curiosity, growth and commitment and your higher education is the perfect place to start. The skills you develop, both soft and hard skills, lay the groundwork for a successful career. The key is to keep your eyes and ears open and look for opportunities where you can apply your knowledge in practice.