Conference Session

Chemical Engineering Division Poster Session

Collection

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Declan Thomas Mahaffey-Dowd, University of California, Berkeley; Shannon Ciston, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Negar Beheshti Pour, University of California, Berkeley

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

CarAbstract Teamwork is widely recognized as an important soft skill for engineers in theprofessional workplace. ABET includes teamwork skill development in their accreditationcriteria, and recent alumni report that teamwork is among the most important skills in theirprofessional lives. However, the typical undergraduate classroom consists of a lecture format,which does not help foster teamwork skill development. An alternate space in which teamworkskills can be fostered is in undergraduate technical clubs, such as those that compete in theAIChE annual ChemE Car regional competitions.  The present work-in-progress research studyattempts to provide a framework to continuously improve the development of teamwork as aprofessional skill in a

Conference Session

Teaching Professional Skills in Chemical Engineering

Collection

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Stephanie G. Wettstein, Montana State University - Bozeman; Jennifer R. Brown, Montana State University - Bozeman

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

higher levels of career advancement[4] andsurveys indicate that practicing engineers spend a large portion of their work time writing orspeaking; however, feedback from industry indicates a lack of communication skills in manyengineering graduates.[5] Therefore, so-called “soft” skills, recently redefined as “professional”skills, need to be learned within the engineering curricula and be transferable to the engineeringworkforce. As expected, communication is recognized as a core transferable professionalskill,[2] which is reflected in current ABET criteria[6] and publications such as The engineer of2020,[7] prompting pedagogical changes in engineering curricula.[8, 9] At the author’sinstitution, feedback from alumni surveys and the departmental

Conference Session

Teaching Professional Skills in Chemical Engineering

Collection

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Authors

Robert Wayne Gammon-Pitman, Ohio State University; Lin Ding, Ohio State University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

art. Yet, Dan’s academic plan to support his well-being and be happy are highly criticized. Dan’s vision long-term goal to be employable hasn’t happened and locates himself as “sitting in a void” reconciling with how to modify his plan or where things went wrong. Dan’s internalized yearly failures - the first 2 years of co-op/intern rejections as his lack of soft skills (being personable) and the third year as bad luck because of COVID—are from poor planning that should have been more career-oriented. Dan found the arts helpful to his personal growth and related more to these participating members than engineers. Reflecting Dan grapples with what he should’ve done,“ I shouldn't have made that um, I guess that happiness my