Professional and Career Topics

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

This conversation has been interesting to follow, and some great points have been made. I think one mistake that is made, and being made in this thread, is the expectation that communication/social skills should be taught as part of the engineering programs, and it is a failure of the universities if it is not done. Our future engineers' communications and social skills education starts long before declaring their major; it starts in our homes as we raise our children and, in our communities, when we interact with young people. We are not teaching our youth good social and communications skills in general and it becomes evident when they get to the work force after college. But this is not an engineering problem it is a society problem. I interact with lots of young people in other industries and profession and poor communication is problem in all of those places as well. What are we doing to solve the problem?

Most of the engineering programs that I have interacted with, including my alma mater (The Citadel), do as William stated and bake it into the technical courses requiring team projects, presentations of work, and capstones that on some level require you to work like an engineer in the real world. And isn't that where we usually learn the most; in real world situations and not sitting in another class about communication? Those classes are valuable in many respects, but you have to go out and test it to find out if it is truly valuable.

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

An idea to take classroom presentations to another level: have a group of students seated as a (mock) governing board with responsibility to approve the proposed project. Communication skills on both sides of the dais would be challenged. 

This conversation has been interesting to follow, and some great points have been made. I think one mistake that is made, and being made in this thread, is the expectation that communication/social skills should be taught as part of the engineering programs, and it is a failure of the universities if it is not done. Our future engineers' communications and social skills education starts long before declaring their major; it starts in our homes as we raise our children and, in our communities, when we interact with young people. We are not teaching our youth good social and communications skills in general and it becomes evident when they get to the work force after college. But this is not an engineering problem it is a society problem. I interact with lots of young people in other industries and profession and poor communication is problem in all of those places as well. What are we doing to solve the problem?

Most of the engineering programs that I have interacted with, including my alma mater (The Citadel), do as William stated and bake it into the technical courses requiring team projects, presentations of work, and capstones that on some level require you to work like an engineer in the real world. And isn't that where we usually learn the most; in real world situations and not sitting in another class about communication? Those classes are valuable in many respects, but you have to go out and test it to find out if it is truly valuable.

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

This conversation has been interesting to follow, and some great points have been made. I think one mistake that is made, and being made in this thread, is the expectation that communication/social skills should be taught as part of the engineering programs, and it is a failure of the universities if it is not done. Our future engineers' communications and social skills education starts long before declaring their major; it starts in our homes as we raise our children and, in our communities, when we interact with young people. We are not teaching our youth good social and communications skills in general and it becomes evident when they get to the work force after college. But this is not an engineering problem it is a society problem. I interact with lots of young people in other industries and profession and poor communication is problem in all of those places as well. What are we doing to solve the problem?

Most of the engineering programs that I have interacted with, including my alma mater (The Citadel), do as William stated and bake it into the technical courses requiring team projects, presentations of work, and capstones that on some level require you to work like an engineer in the real world. And isn't that where we usually learn the most; in real world situations and not sitting in another class about communication? Those classes are valuable in many respects, but you have to go out and test it to find out if it is truly valuable.

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

Great points, James.

Teaching employees better communication skills in addition to what they learned in school is an essential part of life-long learning. Observing and emulating good communicators works well, as does Toastmasters participation.

Bill Mc

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William McAnally Ph.D., P.E., BC.CE, BC.NE, F.ASCE
ENGINEER
Columbus MS
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-02-2024 11:58 AM
From: James Wilson
Subject: Communication as part of the engineering skills set

This conversation has been interesting to follow, and some great points have been made. I think one mistake that is made, and being made in this thread, is the expectation that communication/social skills should be taught as part of the engineering programs, and it is a failure of the universities if it is not done. Our future engineers' communications and social skills education starts long before declaring their major; it starts in our homes as we raise our children and, in our communities, when we interact with young people. We are not teaching our youth good social and communications skills in general and it becomes evident when they get to the work force after college. But this is not an engineering problem it is a society problem. I interact with lots of young people in other industries and profession and poor communication is problem in all of those places as well. What are we doing to solve the problem?

Most of the engineering programs that I have interacted with, including my alma mater (The Citadel), do as William stated and bake it into the technical courses requiring team projects, presentations of work, and capstones that on some level require you to work like an engineer in the real world. And isn't that where we usually learn the most; in real world situations and not sitting in another class about communication? Those classes are valuable in many respects, but you have to go out and test it to find out if it is truly valuable.

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

This conversation has been interesting to follow, and some great points have been made. I think one mistake that is made, and being made in this thread, is the expectation that communication/social skills should be taught as part of the engineering programs, and it is a failure of the universities if it is not done. Our future engineers' communications and social skills education starts long before declaring their major; it starts in our homes as we raise our children and, in our communities, when we interact with young people. We are not teaching our youth good social and communications skills in general and it becomes evident when they get to the work force after college. But this is not an engineering problem it is a society problem. I interact with lots of young people in other industries and profession and poor communication is problem in all of those places as well. What are we doing to solve the problem?

Most of the engineering programs that I have interacted with, including my alma mater (The Citadel), do as William stated and bake it into the technical courses requiring team projects, presentations of work, and capstones that on some level require you to work like an engineer in the real world. And isn't that where we usually learn the most; in real world situations and not sitting in another class about communication? Those classes are valuable in many respects, but you have to go out and test it to find out if it is truly valuable.

Thanks for sharing the paper, Bill. The author's point about the importance of social skills in engineering, especially good communication, is confirmed by my experience. However, some of her statements are dated, at least in the U.S. For example, the second sentence you quoted ("Engineers no longer manage...") wasn't true when published in 2009 or even in the 1960's. Solid social skills have always been important and life-long learning has been essential throughout my career.

The two engineering schools with which I am currently familiar have been practicing what the author advocates for at least 20 years. In addition to coursework on communication, they embed communication and teamwork exercises in technical courses, culminating in a capstone course in which students' cumulative technical knowledge and social skills are required to graduate. Industry engineers serve on advisory boards and give guest lectures frequently. I believe that most engineering schools do something very similar. I don't doubt that more could be done, but we would run up against the problem of a limited number of course hours available to most students and the issues of a 4-year degree you mentioned in an earlier post.

One statement by the author is completely correct -- "... it's hard to determine whether the right formula for providing our students with hands-on social capabilities upon taking on actual organizational tasks has yet been found." I'm unaware of any hard evidence showing what educational practices work best for social skills.

B

Bill – this is an interesting topic – and I guess we have discussed aspects of it in some other threads before. The shared paper greatly enhances some of the communication issues – in particular within engineering industries.

In this post, I like to limit myself to highlighting some interesting and important observations presented by the author. Referred paper: {Pia Lappalainen (2009) Communication as part of the engineering skills set, European Journal of Engineering Education, 34:2, 123-129, DOI: 10.1080/03043790902752038}.

Here are some of them I picked up from the section on Underestimated role of communication:

. . . Despite the undeniable merit credited to social capital, communication has still not

received strategic status in the eyes of many corporate operators. . . .

First of all, traditionally communication, among other support functions, has been unduly underestimated as a resource-consuming and non-profitable area of corporate operations.

Second, it does not play any visible part in yielding results or profits. . . unlike the core functions, although the role of such communications oriented competences as tacit knowledge, cooperation, human skills, and leadership are already acknowledged and known to bring advantage . . .

Another underlying reason is that unlike many other areas of business, the impact of communication is not easily measurable . . . it is difficult to justify investment in activities whose impacts cannot be verified. This measurement problem has roots in the fact that communication is so closely interwoven with all organizational activities that the mere definition of what is pure communication and what is leadership, personnel management or marketing is close to impossible. . . .

Yet another explanation for the inability to credibly establish the significance of communication is that communication, among other human resources, is associated with soft values, unlike core business activities that entail the potential to yield returns . . .

Topped off with connotations implying abstract phenomena such as culture, human relationships, atmosphere, and communality, communication is often disregarded as irrelevant (relevant?).

. . . company CEOs often take on their piloting duties with a CFO background, making them oblivious to the significance of communications. Naturally they cannot value what they do not understand, and the subsequent CEO-driven value system cascading down the hierarchical . . .

The author's observations – very realistic, reverberating with many of our practical experiences – rightly indicate that communication is yet to get integrated into the business-models. Results are – although all sorts of communications are there – business structure does not know how to measure them to assign value to their importance.

And the art of effective communication?

Dilip

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Dr. Dilip K Barua, Ph.D

Website Links and Profile

Please allow me to share a new book on the topic:

Collaborating for Comprehensivity: Fearnley, CJ: 9798321867235: Amazon.com: Books