27 % STEM students opting for non-technical trainings

Hyderabad: Students majoring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) are always considered as smart decision-makers and are congratulated for choosing a lucrative career path in our society. However, in the past few years, the number of STEM majors ending up finding satisfaction in non-technical jobs has grown immensely.

Lack of knowledge and interest, lack of job opportunities, lack of available alternatives to polish the domain skills needed for technical jobs are few reasons why students' interest has been shifting towards learning managerial and creative skills and finding a non-technical, non-operational job. As per Internshala's latest report, there has been a 27 percent increase in the number of STEM students opting for non-technical online trainings since 2018.

Which training attracts STEM students the most?

Out of all the trainings, digital marketing has been the most popular training among STEM students with 46 percent of the total students enrolled in the same. As the supply of engineering students is much higher than their demand, it becomes extremely difficult for them to find a suitable job. As a result, students find their comfort in digital marketing training as there are endless opportunities for them in this field.

Digital marketers are expected to have job-specific skills like analytical rigour, strategy making, problem-solving, and technological competency. Engineering graduates during their coursework acquire all of these skills and with their strong technical and mathematical skills, they produce exceptional results while working as digital marketers. Earlier, digital marketers were expected to plan and execute creative campaigns, but today in addition to creativity, professionals need to be data-driven too. After completing an online digital marketing training, STEM students get to work in lucrative job roles including content managers & strategists, virtual reality developers and editors, SEO/SEM specialists, email marketing specialist, analysts & AI specialists, and digital marketing managers & directors.

Other popular non-technical trainings include business communication skills training with 17 percent enrollment, advance excel with 14 percent, beginner's trading certification training with 9 percent, and creative writing training with 7 percent enrollments.

What are the major learning objectives of these students?

45 percent of students from STEM are enrolled in non-technical online training to gain a new skill. 35 percent take online training to land a job or internship in future, 12 percent of the students wanted to be certified in a new skill to add weight to their resumes, 7 percent were interested to build their own project, and only 1 percent students took an online training to fulfil their college requirements. While the students gain an understanding of theoretical concepts in their colleges, they tend to acquire practical knowledge of other fields through affordable and accessible online trainings. This allows them to upskill and continue self-paced learning without disturbing their regular schedule.

Which streams do these students belong to?

The majority of students who pursue non-tech skills are from an engineering background and they make up to 66 percent of total enrollments. This set is followed by students from Bachelor of Science (B.Sc), Bachelor of Science (B. Sc) (Hons.), and other technical streams.

An interesting pattern that emerged in both 3-year courses like B. Sc and 4-year courses like engineering is that the majority of enrollments are from students in their pre-final and final year. This clearly explains how students tend to pursue their curriculum in their first year of college and eventually explore options to gain practical skills from their 2nd year in college onwards.

Online trainings have been providing interesting opportunities to various students from every corner of the world, belonging to any stream, to learn new skills at the comfort of their home. Through such unique, short-termed, and practically driven online training, students no longer have to study and work in a field against their interest as they can explore their passion and can opt for interesting job roles without enrolling in a full-time course for the same.