Hard Skills versus Soft Skills

Hard skills tend to be the things you can write in an instruction sheet: how to change spark plugs, give an injection, or enter items on a spreadsheet. Formal education, both in high school and college, tends to focus on hard skills because they are easy to grade (I can quickly tell whether you have correctly named the bones in the human hand) and because so many schools are obsessed with propelling you as quickly as possible into a job where you can accomplish a specific task.

Soft skills are more difficult to teach: showing up for work on time, cooperating with coworkers, treating your boss with proper respect. Few high school or college courses focus on soft skills, yet, oddly, you are more likely to get fired for lacking soft skills than for lacking hard skills. Coworkers and bosses see those who lack soft skills as irritating and disrespectful.

Applying this to the classroom

For the next few years, your main job description is “student.” Treat this like a job you want to keep.

• Show up before your shift starts so you can be at your work station on time.
  • If you show up five or ten minutes late at most paid jobs, you will probably get a warning the first time and your paycheck will be docked. After about three, you are in danger of being fired. If you simply don’t show up and don’t call anyone, the first or second offense will get you fired.
  • A college class period is 50 minutes long. If you are ten minutes late, you have missed 20% of your working day. “On time” doesn’t mean bursting in the door at the last second. It means being ready to start real work when the class period begins.
• Bring the right tools and equipment.
  • If you are working in construction, I won’t let you start without your hard hat. If you forgot to put on your steel-toed boots, you can’t borrow a pair from someone else.
  • “Right tools” for a classroom certainly includes paper and pen or pencil. (Yes, I know you got through high school without taking notes, just sort of staring blankly into space. College is different.) “Right tools and preparation” for a college class also means doing the day’s reading before you get here.
• Cooperate with your boss and coworkers. If you are a pain to work with, nobody will help you and you will get passed over for promotions and the other good stuff in life. The same is true in a classroom. Teachers cannot transfer you to a different division, but you won’t get their best if you spend your day being irritating.
• Stay focused on your job. If you spend your working day playing on your phone or sending Tweets on your work computer, most supervisors will write you a warning and start looking for ways to get rid of you. They aren’t paying you to gossip with friends or look at porn. Think of college the same way: You didn’t come here (and pay tuition) to chatter with your friends, look at porn or play fantasy football. Though some teachers confiscate phones, I won’t do that, but if you are playing on your phone, you will lose attendance credit, and when it comes time to work on your next paper, you won’t have a clue what is going on. I will probably ask you to put the phone away (and that's pretty embarrassing).
• Lost in your own little world. It’s pretty common for students to assume that we cannot see you when you spend the whole class session playing on your phone or studying for other courses. Surprisingly enough, we can see you when you are doing these things!
  • This sort of behavior is an insult to both the teacher and the other students. (Yes, your classmates do complain when you get lost in your phone.) Do you really want your paper graded by someone who knows that you don’t respect the course or the teacher’s work?
  • Yes, attendance is part of the grade in this course, but you need to do more than simply occupy space and hold down a chair. Students who spend the class session sleeping, playing on their phone, or doing homework for other courses get 25% of the day’s attendance credit. Your body was here, but not your mind.

I have known more than one person who lacked these skills—who showed up late, didn’t bring the right tools, and couldn’t even be bothered to bathe—and who complained that he couldn’t get a job because everyone was prejudiced against him. The issue wasn’t race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else; the problem is that people who lack these skills aren’t seen as assets. (One clueless fellow simply didn’t show up for a week and was astonished that the job wasn’t waiting for him when he returned.) College students who lack these soft skills will have trouble getting through courses because they will keep losing points for attendance, won’t know what the material is all about (because they are playing on their phones and not taking notes) and generally just don’t get it together enough to be adults in an academic setting.