FIT

I spoke to a class at FIT today (Fashion Institute of Technology). Ted Schachter from the Advertising & Communications program asked me to speak to his May grads.  It was a great experience and a lot of fun. 

90% of them have no idea what they are doing after graduation.  Still, their expressions for the first few minutes said, "I am trying to figure out why the hell you are here."

After 20-minutes of going over the career and salary data they seemed a lot more interested in #measure and #analytics.

One of the students was a self-taught JavaScript guru that has been developing her own websites since she was 10.  This made me feel extremely old, but that is very much beside the point.  She has been interning in a B2B marketing department, working with their SEO & SEM programs.  SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT TO DO AFTER GRADUATION.

Another student had a BA in Economics and a few years of experience as a financial analyst / modeler.  She has an internship doing social media analytics and is working on her MBA.  She needs to hurry up and get to the workforce.  We need her. 

We discussed the fact that most of them will not become analytics professionals, but all of them can accelerate their careers by learning about analytics. 

I spoke to them about the need in analytics for people that cross over between the technical > business > quantitative spectrum.  They need to speak at least two of these languages… no matter what career path they take. 

Thanks again to Ted for the invitation.