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New York City
December 2002

Why Technology Students Need Shakespeare
By Diane Engelhardt

Ophelia: ’Tis in my memory locked...

(Hamlet Act I Scene 3)

Hamlet: Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records...

(Hamlet Act I Scene 5)

Has Ophelia forgotten her password? Is Hamlet promising to delete all his files in order to be able to download the Ghost’s program? Probably not, but they sound as if they did. Even if we do not think that Shakespeare predicted the rise of the computer, we can be certain that everything the human hand has created existed first in the imagination.

Teaching our students about the imagination of the past, we fuel the imagination of the future. More than ever before, employers value the tremendous role of creativity and imagination in our high tech world. Today’s businesses, ranging from healthcare institutions to government agencies to electronics manufacturers, are in the market for people who know technology. But they need more. They’re looking for employees whose backgrounds are broader and interests more expansive than just the latest technological advance—individuals who have the aptitude for growth and development that will enable them to contribute to the company in multiple ways.

Successful employees bring more than just “know how” to the table. They bring perspective. They bring critical thinking and problem solving abilities. They can relate to others, individually and as a team, and appreciate diverse personalities and different cultures.

As such, a focus on developing “soft skills”—skills that are easily translated into any business environment—must be at the core of any higher educational program. Students need to learn how to address their superiors effectively, how to handle criticism, how to disagree about a substantive issue in a productive way. They need to be able to make presentations that hold an audience’s interest. They need to be able to write. That’s why technology students need Shakespeare.

At DeVry, which offers associate and bachelor degree programs in technology and technology-based business, we’ve made general education courses, which encompass communication skills, social sciences, humanities and general sciences, a key element of our curriculum. We’ve found that such courses directly relate to our graduates’ ability to succeed in the workplace. In fact, based on feedback and the unique interests of our faculty, we’ve continued to expand our offerings.

Some students initially approach these classes with skepticism. How is learning Shakespeare going to help them get a job, they ask. The answer is this: to achieve a person’s true potential in his or her career, that person must not only learn skills, but learn to think and to relate those skills to the outside world. Or as Hamlet said: “The play is the thing...”#

Diane Engelhardt is president of the DeVry Institute of Technology in Long Island City, New York.

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