Why Do Digital Skills Matter More Now Than Ever Before?

Keeping up with the ever-changing times is a crucial ingredient in evolving. And if there is one factor that helped mankind take leaps into modern living, it is technology.

Since the advent of technology, we have acquired a plethora of skills—connecting via emails, making a presence on social media platforms, learning interactive ways of studying through digital mediums, and so much more.

It is difficult to imagine the world without the constant connectivity and the fantasy of a futuristic world. It is expected that technology will change the way we live and pave the way for further innovations. This brings us to one very important conclusion: We need to be better equipped with digital skills to manage the technological shift to enrich our lives further and live with greater convenience.

To leverage the most out of technology and revolutionise our work, the first thing that we must acquire are Digital Skills.

What Is The Importance Of Digital Skills?

Who would have predicted 50 years ago that our lives would revolve around mini hand-held devices in a digital world where we would all have our own online identities?

Now imagine what the next 50 years will look like. Perhaps we will have our own clone robots working for us like minions, or perhaps we will be able to bring our digital avatars to life with a single click. Who knows? Anything is possible! Therefore, digital literacy or having digital skills is extremely crucial in today’s world to understand the rapidly changing technology, and learning and implementing these skills in our daily life.

Mastering the art of digital skills does not generally mean learning about technological skills. In fact, it is much more than that. It involves the acquisition of knowledge and the responsible use of data which is obtained through various assets of technology such as e-mails and social media.

Without having any knowledge of digital skills, we may find difficulty in the workplace and in everyday life. Hence, digitisation enhances our personal and professional skills and offers us a plethora of options when it comes to finding a career and expanding our knowledge about the online world.

How Do Digital Skills Help Us In Our Career?

In today’s world, having a profound knowledge of Digital Skills is extremely beneficial. Any person with digital skills is favoured over others because of her/his technical expertise. It is true that people who excel in academics are appreciated, but as the digital era is booming by the day, individuals who can use their digital skills and know the use of digital tools are a necessity these days.

Students who understand the importance of digital skills are now moving ahead of the curve. They are acquiring knowledge about skills that are relevant to industries and careers in their respective fields, which will further help them in the future. From artificial intelligence, social media marketing, machine learning, designing, etc..

As we all know, knowledge is power, and learning about these technologies will only enable students to accomplish their goals in life easily.

From learning how to code apps and websites, to knowing how to navigate through design and Photoshop software, digital skills not only help bring our visual ideas to life but also find new and exciting ways to communicate creatively. All of this is a win-win in anyone’s career.

The Importance Of Digital Skills & How It Is The Future Of Education

Remember when you learned MS Word and MS Excel in school? Those were the days when millennials were just getting into technology and would eagerly type almost anything in MS Excel just to feel what it was like to write words on a computer screen. Along with that, we learned other software in school and then slowly progressed towards using social media platforms, communicating through e-mails and expressing ourselves creatively with the help of design tools like photoshop.

Now imagine if we were not introduced to all these marvels of technology way back in school? Do you think our lives would have been different? Of course!

Everything we do today is a result of the digital skills we learned in our childhood. Whether it is sending an e-mail, working on a PowerPoint presentation, making an Excel sheet or simply letting our creative juices flow through design software—all of this (and more!) is only possible because of the skills that we acquired at a very young age.

Therefore, to have a flourishing career, students must be armed with the necessary digital skills.

The Value of Digital Skills for Young Millennials and Generation Z

Just like we encourage our students to be socially aware, we must not forget to tell them the importance of being digitally aware. According to research, digital skills are essential for students to meet the demands of the work market.

According to reports, as digital technologies are integrated into manufacturing processes, workers performing mechanical tasks will be less in demand; on the other hand, those who can interact with new-age technology will be essential for the job market.

As per a survey on Resumeble, it is also estimated that by 2026, 1 million jobs will vanish with technology completely taking them over. Therefore, future job candidates will be required to perform tasks that will need them to have the knowledge of digital skills. By that time, there’ll be some 1.5 million jobs that will not be fulfilled by the market if the young generation does not know these digital skills.

How Today’s Academic Institutions Helping Its Students Hone Their Digital Skills?

After diving deep into the importance of digital literacy and its importance for the future of students and their professional career, let’s take you through how digital skills help shape the career of a design student.

Digital literacy requires a deep understanding of the digital tools emerging out of new-age technology along with creating awareness about the up-and-coming new-age careers such as content creation, branding, social media, content management, and so on.

Therefore, students should be given an all-around exposure where they can get hands-on experience with digital tools relevant to their course and arm them with a deep knowledge of digital skills that are useful for their careers.

The Importance Of Digital Skills In The Life Of A Design Student

Let’s be true, in today’s world, if a designer wants to push boundaries, they really need to have a profound knowledge of digital skills and the right graphic design tools by their side. Well, in a layman’s language, digital tools can be deemed as the right-hand man of a design student. With the number of exciting surprises that are laid out for design students in their careers, we help our aspiring designers get a good understanding of all the necessary digital tools.

How Do We Instill the Important Digital Skills in Our Students?

Art and technology can be married in creative ways to create the most beautiful things. The design industry is constantly evolving to pave the way towards more inclusive and lucrative career opportunities. Hence, IIAD provides a flourishing environment for its students to grow and learn about digital skills.

If equipped with relevant skills and digital tools, a design student can do wonders in his or her career or even end up grabbing an opportunity they could have never dreamed of.

In a nutshell, there is a big demand for design-related jobs and a plethora of careers in the field of design. However, the problem lies in the fact that there is no proper training and exposure to industry standards. As a result, we assist our students in receiving licenced professional tools to play with while in college, allowing them to stand out from the crowd and turn that degree into their dream job!

Digital Tools And Its Importance In A Design Student’s Life

Tools help us create the things we dream about or are passionate about. Just like a chef uses fire to toss some culinary magic, a musician needs his instruments to play a tune. Similarly, for a designer, his brushes are his tools to weave magic and create visual art.

Since we are not living in the renaissance era, brushes are swapped with a stylus to give designers a new-age tool to capture the ever-shifting shapes and vivid colours in their minds. If design students are backed by digital tools, they can produce compelling visuals, graphic designs, and almost anything that comes to their creative minds without a hassle.

To make our students successful designers in the digital age, we give them some proficient tools to create a wide array of graphic designs that help them create them much faster and with better impact.

At IIAD, students are given licenced professional tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Canvas, LinkedIn Learning, Corel Draw, and InDesignto expand their endless creative liberties. Unlike other careers, we teach our students to break the rules and go wild with their imagination with the help of these digital tools.

The aim of every academic college or institution should be to stay agile and up-to-date with the times. For that, students should be trained to easily adapt to whatever the situation calls for by making them understand the importance of digital skills at a very nascent stage in their course. For lucrative career opportunities in their professional life, students should be armed with digital tools and the relevant knowledge of digital skills.