The qualities and skills that a person requires to become successful in today’s world cannot be learned at a university or other academic institutions. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

The education system has evolved with time, and continuously trying to catch up with the latest technological advancements. The curriculum being offered by academic institutes is updated periodically, whereas the new developments in the industry are evolving every day. Some critics assert that the university education is the key to become a successful professional, while I completely disagree with this notion and the essay will outline why extra skill sets need to be inculcated in the graduates. Firstly, in today's IT world along with the academic subjects, one has to learn some specific skills or a language such as, artificial intelligence, python, in order to have an extra edge over others. These advanced courses can not be taught in colleges, because they require well-equipped labs and experienced staff, which is lagging in most of the universities. The University of London, for instance, is the oldest university in the UK, but they still do not have their own lab for coding. Moreover, as most of the universities have nominal fees, so they cannot afford such a high-tech infrastructure, therefore the students do not get exposed to the latest trends and it makes it hard to survive in the corporate world. Secondly, since the teaching staff is underpaid in the universities, consequently, they are not motivated to study the latest technological trends and pass it on to their students. In other words, the students after completing their education join a job with traditional concepts in their minds, hence they struggle to understand the latest technical terms used in the industry. For example, Google has started a campus connect program in association with few universities in the US, and they have made this as mandatory for students to pass these modules, in order to be eligible for a job in their company. Furthermore, since the majority of the students during their academic study focus only on the defined syllabus, in order to pass the exams and attain the degree, as a result, they do not gain practical knowledge, so they have to undergo hardships to get a job. To conclude, the present education system cannot catch with the lightning-fast changing technological trends. It only focuses on the basic concepts which are not sufficient for a student to become a successful professional engineer.