SOCIAL MEDIA AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT AMONG UNDERGRADUATES
Skill development has always been a problem for most people especially students and new graduated students. There are various skills undergraduate students can learn but the problem of seeing a place to learn such skills become a problem.
In Nigeria today, the rate of unemployment is very high. Graduates end up taking jobs they do not have passion for; some take up any available skill. Just to make ends meet.
There is variation in terms of socio economic status of students; most students in the university work and school at the same time while some wishes to work but could not find one.
Social Media
Social media presents vast opportunities as an effective communication and distribution channel, a tool to understand and influence the customer perception and behaviour and ability to bring people of the same interest together. It is therefore no longer a subject of discussion for organizations that want to have competitive advantage in the market place if they should use social media, but how and to what extent it should be used.
Social media has also become a valuable repository of information, especially data and information that provides valuable insight into the behaviour and perceptions of the users. Hence, it is important that organizations use social media to listen to the information available about the brand, product or service. Although it will be more beneficial for organizations to have a social media strategy that goes beyond listening to the information available about the organization’s brand or product on social media, to engaging the target audience using social media in order to take advantage of the opportunity that it presents.
Social media practitioners describe engagement as communicating, connecting and relating with the target market in their world enough to get their attention. This involves listening to the target market and providing communication that focuses on individuals rather than a mass market with a realistic message that the target market can relate to. Again, this emphasizes the individualistic and personalized touch required in social media, suggesting a new digital word of mouth concept that takes advantage of technology to spread messages on a one on one basis.
Skill development
Skills development is generally used to refer to the productive capabilities acquired through all levels of learning and training, occurring in formal, non-formal, informal and on-the-job settings. It enables individuals to become fully and productively engaged in livelihoods, and to have the opportunity to adapt these capabilities to meet the changing demands and opportunities of economy and labour market. The acquisition of such capabilities depends on many factors, including a quality lifelong learning system and a supportive learning environment. The types of skills required for employment can be divided into:
• Basic and foundation skills: which are acquired through the primary and secondary formal school system, or through non-formal and/or informal learning processes (e.g. active learning, oral expression, reading comprehension, written expression, ICT literacy, active listening). These are pre-requisites for acquiring further skills enhancing the prospect of sustainable employment.
• Transferable skills: which include the abilities to learn and adapt, solve problems, communicate ideas effectively, think critically and creatively and the ability to manage self and others. These skills enable people to adapt to different work environments as well as improving their opportunities to career-building.
• Technical and vocational skills: which are specialized skills, knowledge or know-how to perform specific duties or tasks, mainly in a professional environment. These include, but are not limited to, the traditional forms of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), skills acquired through the secondary level of the formal school system or through non-formal and/or informal learning processes.
• Professional and personal skills: including individual attributes relevant to work such as honesty, integrity, reliability, work ethic, and judgment.
Social Media and Skills Development Among Undergraduates
Social media is a very powerful tool, funny enough it is still under-utilized in Nigeria. There are various skills undergraduate students can learn from social media. There is various online training that can be followed on social media. Some of the marketable skills to learn as an undergraduate in tertiary institution are data analysis, programming, seminar and project coach. All these are skills that can be learnt. Let’s talk about data analysis; there is a branch of data analysis that focuses on undergraduate project topics development.
Project writing is usually a very big task for undergraduate students especially when they get to chapter three. Analyzing data for students can also be a good skill to learn while in school.
On the area of programming, digitalization has become the order of the day; programmers are one of important people in most organization especially in digital marketing firms in Nigeria. There are still various skills an undergraduate student can learn but I just mentioned but a few. All the student can do is to follow some of the research firms like uniprojectmaterials, nairaproject, projectregards etc on their facebook page or instagram to learn some these skills.