Conference Session

The Critical First Year in Engineering Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jamie Medoff, University of Maryland-Baltimore County; Anne Spence, University of Maryland-Baltimore County

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

areas, particularly communication and teaching skills. Ina report entitled Education and Careers 2000: Enhanced Skills for engineers, these “softskills” were reported as fundamental to industry as the engineering skills taught incollege. “The message from industry leaders is that young graduate engineers arriving attheir companies do not possess skills in either the quality or quantity required. Theseextra skills include written and oral communication…”1In a study at the Michigan Technological University, professors were placed in industrysettings for a short time to determine what successful engineers need in the industry. As aresult, they found that “engineers need a variety of soft and hard skills.” Included inthese soft skills were teaming