Murray Bender: RBC Investor & Treasury Services is pleased to present Insights on the future of asset and payment Services across the globe. Coming up on today’s podcast is a special guest. I’m pleased to welcome McKenzie McFarlane, Lead for the Teen Ambassador Program at Canada Learning Code. Now, the Teen Ambassador Program, or TAP, as it’s commonly referred to, is a virtual program that provides Canadian teens with opportunities to learn about the tech industry from leading subject matter experts in the business community. McKenzie’s going to tell us about TAP and how the program is helping to prepare teens for their entry into the job market. Welcome to the podcast from beautiful British Columbia, McKenzie.
McKenzie McFarlane: Thanks very much, Murray. I am very excited to be here.
Murray Bender: So, to start, McKenzie, can you talk a bit about TAP and your involvement in the Teen Ambassador Program at Canada Learning Code?
McKenzie McFarlane: Absolutely. The Teen Ambassador Program is a year-long program that goes on from about September until June. We meet with teens about two to three times a month. We participate in coding workshops. There are professional development opportunities, as well as scholarship and internship opportunities that we talk about as well. So, there are lots of different things that we touch on in TAP.
Murray Bender: So, in your view, what’s the most significant challenge faced by youth today as they prepare for a career?
McKenzie McFarlane: Yeah. That’s a great question. I have kind of like a two-pronged answer for this. I find that, initially, there’s a bit of an age gap in terms of employees, in terms of those who are already in the job market and those who are starting to enter the job market. And it seems like there’s been a shift in mentality from, you never say no to overtime, to this real emphasis these days on kind of work/life balance.
So, the bulk of the employers that teens might be interacting with may fall into that age group that have kind of different work ethic views, especially in terms of that kind of work/life balance and that obligation to work. So that’s something that I like to have my employers kind of keep in mind when they’re working with our younger demographic.
Something else that came to mind and a significant challenge is definitely the computer science education in schools. I know that there’s definitely been a shift in the last few years to including that in the curriculum that is taught. But up until that point, it was really something that teens were just kind of lucky to have access to. It was really dependent on a teacher in that school who is really passionate about coding and kind of bringing it to that community.
I also notice there’s a lack of access to computer science education, which is even more acute for those kind of marginalized groups. So, again, there’s this inaccessibility to computer science education.
I also feel like there’s a lack of education in institutions surrounding real-life skills. I found when I was in elementary school and high school, we would learn about things that might not be necessarily pertinent to later in life—the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell; lava is only magma when it’s underground; which is really interesting and fun to tell your friends at parties, but may not be super applicable when it comes to entering the job field.
Things like resume building, budgeting, investing, people skills. Definitely something that our teens and ourselves have probably struggled with over the last couple of years is this aspect of interacting with someone in real life.
So, this is why I think that RBC organizations are so important. We were actually lucky enough to have RBC come and support a couple of workshops for the Teen Ambassador Program, where we talked about financial literacy and resume building. And you better believe, I was also there taking notes, writing down things that I didn’t know about financial literacy.
Murray Bender: Yeah. So, lots of challenges. Looking at the flip side, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for teens as they enter the job market?
McKenzie McFarlane: So, I would say, in the last 20 or 30 years, there’s been a real shift towards automation. And so, I think a real skill that teens can bring to the job market is a proficiency in computer science and computer science knowledge.
Matina and I were chatting about the fact that about 70% of Canadian top jobs in the future are going to require this STEM or learning of computer science education. So it’s really important to kind of become aware of these different free, available organizations who can provide this technological computer science education.
There will also be this shift, a generational shift from those who are already in the workforce to those who are transitioning into the workforce. And as I’ve mentioned before about this shift towards automation, sometimes there’s a little bit of hesitancy or distrust of those folks who are kind of already in the job market of this shift towards automation. And there might be a little bit of hesitancy to kind of participate in that shift, especially for those who might be on their way out, heading towards retirement.
So, I think there’s a real opportunity for this next generation of teens to really bridge that gap between your less automated into where we’re getting to in the future, which is going to be this kind of real-life reliance on automation.
So, I think that this shift will help to facilitate the transition from going from a less automated system to a more automated system. So I think teens really bring a wealth of knowledge into easing that process for the current job market.
Murray Bender: Yeah. Very important. From your unique vantage point, what are the most important skills required by youth to be successful in the real world?
McKenzie McFarlane: There are quite a few. And it’s interesting because there are definitely some skills that I would have said teens should have two years ago that are a little bit different than the skills I’m seeing that maybe teens need today.
So, one of the major themes of the Teen Ambassador Program and Canada Learning Code in general is this idea of resiliency. Now, I find when I’m teaching adults versus teens versus teachers, sometimes there’s this mentality of, my brain doesn’t work like that. I hear very often: I don’t have a math brain. And there’s this very quick willingness to kind of give up on learning a new skill because it might seem intimidating or overwhelming.
And this is a characteristic that I see a lot in the teens that I work with, is this resiliency and this ability to problem solve and find the answer on their own. And that’s kind of the beauty of coding is you might have an idea of something that you want to build, and you don’t really know how to do it. So there’s this aspect of trial and error. It might not work, but you’re going to keep trying and you’re going to do it again.
And the other beautiful thing about coding is that you can make something happen in a lot of different ways. There isn’t kind of a, this strict algorithm is used for this purpose. There’s lots of different ways that you can give instructions to a computer and technology.
I think digital skills, of course, are going to be very important, as well as these critical thinking skills. So in the last couple of years, you might have noticed this concept of like fake news and how quickly things travel. So we really try to impart the knowledge of thinking critically about the information that you’re receiving on a daily basis, whether that’s through school or online or social media, and just really being very critically thinking about the information that’s being received.
The last one that I think I had mentioned earlier was this aspect of people skills. So our reliance on technology in the last few years and teens just communicating with one another through a screen, it makes it really easy to just kind of rely on a keyboard and maybe having your camera off when you’re interacting. But this is a skill that’s definitely going to come into play in the future when you start to enter these job markets.
Even if you have your typical teen who maybe wants to be a die-hard computer science, they want to be a front-end developer, they want to sit behind a computer screen all day, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t going to have to interact with other people. I tell my teens all the time, even if you’re working in computer science and you’re building websites, you’re building games, you will very likely have to work on a team with other people. You’ll have to have those people skills, be able to communicate effectively and come up with solutions together.
Murray Bender: Reflecting on your personal experience, if you could do one thing differently in preparing to enter the job market, what would it be?
McKenzie McFarlane: Yeah. I had a couple here, Murray, if that’s okay. One that I thought of right out of the gate was to take some time away. You don’t necessarily have to go right into university after high school. I actually think it’s really important to kind of take some time out. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Worst-case scenario, you find out what you don’t want to do.
Something else I recommend teens do, perhaps during this gap year between high school and university, is volunteer. Volunteer at a couple of different organizations and find out what they do. You might have an idea; this is something I really want to do. Sometimes teens will just look at the salary and say, oh, this looks fun, I want to do this. And then they actually get into that role and it’s not exactly what they had anticipated.
So, volunteering at different organizations, getting a sense for what they really look like, and actually meeting with those folks and communicating with them to get an idea of what their daily life looks like. And volunteering looks great on a resume, as well. So it’s a win-win.
Murray Bender: Yeah. So any final piece of advice that you would offer teens as they’re about to take on their first full-time position?
McKenzie McFarlane: Yeah. I would say, leverage the courses that are available online. Speaking from a strictly kind of computer science coding perspective, there are so many organizations—not just Canada Learning Code—there’s many, many other organizations that offer coding education online for free.
So, if it’s something that you think you might be interested in, there isn’t this necessity to dive into a computer science or engineering program. Check out the different free resources that are online and decide for yourself whether or not this is something you’d like to get into.
As well, like I said in my previous question, talk to other people who work in those organizations. If you want to work at Google, talk to someone at Google and get an idea of what they do and find out if it’s something you actually like.
Murray Bender: Some great insights, McKenzie. We really appreciate your time today.
McKenzie McFarlane: Thank you so much for having me, Murray. It was a pleasure.
Murray Bender: For additional insights on topics relevant to corporate investors and financial institutions across the globe, including our previous podcasts, visit rbcits.com/insights. I’m Murray Bender. Thanks for listening.
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