Conference Session

ELOS Best Paper Nominations

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Ridgely, California Polytechnic State University; Brian P. Self, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

. Giventhat most of our engineering students typically show resistance to learning such “soft skills” aswritten and oral communication, these survey results are encouraging in that they indicate thatmany students have been to at least some degree won over.When asked to write comments, many students provided insightful suggestions. Several showedtheir appreciation of communicating with fictitious customers with comments such as, “I thoughtthat the customers were fun and creative. It forced us to think outside the box a little, and addressthem like people with potentially little technical background.” Others had a bit more difficultywith the task of writing to a customer rather than faculty: “I guess that I personally didn't write itto the client, so