"Beyond Their Technical Capabilities: Providing Student Exposure to Professional, Communication, and Leadership Skills"

Beyond their technical capabilities, future engineers will require strong leadership, communication, and professional skills to navigate an ever-changing field that is increasingly influenced by issues associated with globalization and environmental sustainability.A new course on these "soft" skills has been developed at Tufts University.The course, recently taught to civil and environmental engineering majors, was designed to introduce professional issues associated with the practice of engineering.The course also examines the economic, political and social issues that frame the project delivery process.Professionalism, ethics, communications, and leadership skill development were threaded throughout the course.Though specifically developed and aimed for civil and environmental engineers, course materials are applicable to most areas of engineering and science.This paper presents an overview of the course and provides specific examples of different pedagogical methods and tools used for topic and course delivery.In addition to exams and assignments, a number of term projects were completed, allowing students to actively apply the skills discussed.Some of the pedagogical methods used during the course included "before and after" questionnaires in order to gauge the effectiveness of a discussion, as well as the use of psychological evaluation techniques to gauge leadership traits and skills.In addition, various assessment techniques including surveys, course evaluations, and student and faculty reflections were used to gauge how well course results met course objectives.Based on these assessments, the course could be considered as a success, but additional efforts to improve course content and its delivery in some areas are warranted.