In my last post I considered
the common assumption that the study of philosophy produces graduates who are
less employable than those with degrees in other subjects. Although there is
strong evidence to suggest that this assumption is incorrect, with philosophy
graduates outstripping those with degrees in a range of more obviously
vocational subjects in terms of graduate employment, I wondered if the best way
to enhance the employability of philosophers (and their own perceptions of this
employability) was not merely to encourage them to identify the ‘transferable
skills’[1] which they are likely to
have developed over the course of their studies. Owing to the fact there is a sense in which
such a justificatory move represents an endorsement of the useful/useless discourse
which pervades popular discussion about the purpose of Higher Education, I
suggested that there may be another way to make philosophers employable.
Philosophising About Employability
In 2011/12 I began working as a
(student) project assistant with the Careers Network at the University of
Birmingham. As a doctoral research student in philosophy, I was asked to look
for ways in which we could start to embed employability into my own discipline.
Of course, in spite of the obvious concerns about some of the overall
assumptions underpinning the employability agenda, it seemed clear that we
would not be able to abandon the traditional approach (involving
skills auditing & personal development planning) completely. We may acknowledge that
the vision of the university as a tool to produce workers is problematic,
whilst simultaneously realising that we have an educational duty to equip students with the requisite knowledge to be able to ‘play the employability
game’. This duty arises from the fact that, like it or not, such knowledge will
determine the extent to which graduates are able to live flourishing lives
after graduation. This said, the traditional approach needn’t be old-fashioned
in terms of how it is delivered and, in order to support the personal
development process, our Careers Network developed an innovative online
employability tool, Progress, which is now being integrated into personal
tutorials, induction and transition across the University of Birmingham.
The trouble with the traditional
approach however, is that it does not provide us with the tools to establish
the particularity of philosophy; its uniqueness
as a discipline. In order to attempt to address this challenge I introduced the
idea of philosophy & employability workshops dealing with the philosophy of employability.
Through
problematising the employability agenda itself; by thinking philosophically about employability and asking what it
means as a concept, I reasoned that participants would begin to grasp how the
discipline of philosophy informs their thinking and give them a richer
perspective on their own employability. Indeed, the feedback from the students
who participated in the workshop that we held implied that this was, in fact,
the case. Of course, far more empirical and theoretical work needs to be done
in order to validate this theory but, if I’m correct, the position may point to
the conclusion that good employability practice ought to arise out of in-depth
critical engagement with the most significant features of a discipline; that it
should help students to answer the question “what makes you employable?” with
direct reference to the unique attributes of their subject.
[1] It
is worth noting that the concept of ‘transferable skills’ is more
controversial than mainstream discussions of employability acknowledge. For an illuminating discussion of some of the
key disagreements see Bridges, D. (1993) ‘Transferable skills: A philosophical
perspective’, Studies in Higher Education,
18:1, 43-51.
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