The Top 5 Skills Every College Student Needs To Acquire Before Graduation

A college education is expensive, a huge investment of time and effort, and sometimes,not the right path . In fact, one Harvard expert has reported that for every 100 young people who start college, only 25 get degrees and good jobs. About 45 drop out, and 30 graduate but end up under- or unemployed. But if you--or your kid--are bent on earning a bachelor's degree, how can you stack the deck to make sure an attractive job waits on the other end of four (or more) years? Take some advice from Sarah Franklin, the GM of Trailhead, a free online learning environment created by Salesforce, who has made it her mission to help educate students at any age or expertise, on today's most sought after skills to land their dream jobs at any company. Here are her words about the top five skills she believes every student should master before graduation.

1. Learn to code.

Today, every company is a tech company, which means every kind of business, from beauty to banking, has a need for individuals who know how to code. If you learn to code, it will be a huge asset to you throughout your career, and even if you're not planning to become the master developer, having that skill on your resume can increase earning power and make you more attractive to employers. We at Trailhead offer a beginners developer class, where you can learn the tools and technologies that power development on the Salesforce platform. There are also tons of other free resources online, including GitHub's 500 free programming books that cover more than 80 different programming languages.

2. Learn how to develop for AI.

Artificial intelligence is currently a $15 billion industry, and is expected to grow to more than $70 billion by 2020, meaning that employers are eager to hire people who understand its business value, and how to develop for it, so they can keep ahead of the competition. Adding the ability to understand and develop for AI to your skillset will take your resume to