You may have started to notice that expertise in one area is no longer enough for many jobs. In the future, knowing about many areas and being able to do many things will be key to job applications.

This reality contrasts with our education, where we had to choose a major and try to excel in it. What is happening in the labor market? Why does it demand so much? The answer isn’t difficult, but it is complicated. The education system evolves half as fast as society. Social changes are becoming more and more complex in many dimensions as we move faster toward a new world. Everyone's actions are interconnected, affecting each other directly, indirectly, or both in the supply chain. A single body of knowledge is no longer enough.

We need a learning system that transcends specialist training. Courses should provide holistic learning with unrelated subjects, stimulating thinking systems that control people's reflexive decision-making.

But such changes are rare in the institutions of higher education that produce the market's highly skilled workforce. Most students are still learning in the same old way. Our potential to learn beyond our field of study suffers. Graduates end up in a whirlpool of work that doesn't match their own abilities.

Implications for the future:

- Establishing a course bank may be the best solution for learning in the 21st century.

- A specialized system will be replaced by accumulated work intelligence.

- Higher education institutions require major adjustments in teaching and learning management so their students can survive in the future world system.

Credit: Gidley, J. (2010). Globally scanning for “Megatrends of the Mind”, https://www.sciencemag.org