Gen Z students in Manchester to learn ‘soft skills’ such as empathy and time management
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/21/gen-z-students-in-manchester-to-learn-soft-skills-such-as-empathy-and-time-management
Posted by Fox_9810
Gen Z students in Manchester to learn ‘soft skills’ such as empathy and time management
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/21/gen-z-students-in-manchester-to-learn-soft-skills-such-as-empathy-and-time-management
Posted by Fox_9810
31 Comments
They should offer this to Gen X. Some of my colleagues at work could do with this but they’re too far up their own ass to realise
For the vast majority of jobs, these skills are more important than the crap you actually learn as part of the degree. You really think knowing about Quantum Mechanics will help you when you actually get the job as a commodity futures trader?
Funny feeling folk who are about to object to this is also about to show their arse at how they need this soft skills training.
Too many bright tech types, scientists and other academic specialists are all too often shite with people and the world post-uni is not going too look kind on poor time management.
Empathy is super important for technical offices and some absolute geniuses can be cunts to work with, actively making the work harder.
Genuinely useful. You want to succeed? Manage? Empathy and time management are how you do that.
Manchester Uni creating a class of winners as far as I can see.
Sad that we need courses to teach this but not a bad idea at all
yes, pit generations against eachother.
this pleases the “own nothing, be happy” rulers
Good, those are skills that will serve you well no matter the profession.
I’m sure some people will mock this, but you know what, these are key skills and a lot of people lack them.
Not even soft skills. Time management specifically is fairly crucial in most contemporary jobs. And more and more of what constitutes work requires empathy, or at least basic communication skills.
This was part of my first year for my degree 20 years ago. Not new and actually quite useful for some of my cohort.
Does anyone else find it weird putting the generation name in the title? Can’t we just say students. It adds nothing and just comes off like it’s trying to start one of these petty generation squabbles that are so tedious.
Legit some of the most useful (and overlooked by most people) skills you’ll need in the workplace.
Sad thing is this should have been taught when they were toddlers
So many posters here missing the point.
Yes, these are important qualities for people to have.
Note the key word – qualities, not skills. You cannot teach someone to be empathetic.
empathy training is going to a blood bath of “white people are bad” lectures. Even without inherent racial guidelines they will 100% work that into the curriculum in some fashion. “Hey mate did you ever consider that Ahmed grew up in a different circumstance? It’s not his fault that he is terrorizing the town”
Yet more insufferable drivel from Cosmo. Empathy doesn’t fix bayonets to defend England against our enemies. It bleats about mushy-togetherness while refusing the draft.
You can’t teach empathy can you? At best, you can teach someone to fake it.
Oh please. They won’t learn “empathy”, they’ll simply learn how to use empathetic techniques to better their negation skills. It’s valuable and effective if some correctly, but if you need a class to teach you this you are probably a lost cause anyway.
Did Gen-Z’s parents actually bother teaching them anything?
I think if you’re trying to mold young people to be someone they’re not then maybe your program is misguided. Out with the old, in with the new. Maybe this is our new normal and older people need to suck it up.
You can tell those who consider empathy useless are the types with few to no friends and blame everyone else for their lot in life. Soft skills are vital to succeed in work and society. It should not take a genius to figure out that social skills are considered important by social creatures, nor that lacking them is going to cause you issues at some point down the line. There is a good reason that all obs put the soft skills they want on the person specification, it is not just to make the requirements look fancy.
Gen Z have a lot of empathy. Timing? Yeah fair enough on that one. We’re all terrible. And the reason we’re all terrible at it is because we spent our entire childhoods being told that we have to be on time and then we got into the world of work… Where nobody who’s paid well is ever on-time. Always 5-30 mins late and always leaving early to “pick up the kids”.
In the late 90s they made a half-hearted effort to do this as part of General Studies in 6th form (the time management-type stuff anyway, not so much the empathy). A bit worrying that universities are feeling the need to do it now.
Would rather they learned how to manage finances etc
‘Soft skills’? Empathy and time management will be put into use EVERY DAY. You’ll better those brain cells tough with those skills. Those are not ‘soft’. If you have empathy and time management, you might just make a life worth living.
Of course you can also study science and maths and see how happy you are.
Soft. lol.
Wait, these are skills?
I figured time management was just common sense for most people. And that anyone except Sociopaths or psychopaths could feel/understand empathy.
I believe we had this 10 years ago when I was in high school, but it was reserved for the uh, the ones who couldn’t crack science, math and english..
This is a great idea. I’m genuinely really pleased to read this.
Honestly? This is the sort of thing that you should learn rather than coding. Empathy is something that we always need more of. And we need to learn how to manage our time well.
Outdated in terms of tone and rather American in style but *How To Win Friends And Influence People* honestly changed my life when I read it in my early twenties.
Basically shook me out of my smart arse phase and got me to deeply consider just how my words and actions affect other people.
I like to think I was always an empathetic person but maybe I didn’t bite my tongue often enough. Focused too much on trying to get people to like me by seeming intelligent.
Because if there’s one thing people love it’s being corrected and criticised. Particularly when it’s unnecessary and derails and otherwise pleasant conversation.
I know it’s a naff title but honestly check out the material online. Plenty of notes and videos summarising it.
Speaking as someone who works in a STEM field I am fucking sick of supposedly ‘intelligent’ individuals who have the emotional maturity of a wolverine. Give me the 2:1 students with good soft skills over a 1st class student who could start a fight in an empty pub – because while I can teach the former how to do the job, the latter turns every day into a firefighting exercise and wrecks morale.