What It Means to Be an Engineer: Teaching Humanity in Engineering Education

Research suggests that engineering students prioritize technical courses over general education courses, viewing human and “soft” skills as less important than technical skills. Despite this, employers and working engineers consistently rate human skills as essential and note gaps in these competencies when new engineers enter the workforce. Our current moment, marked by rapid advancements in AI, as well as broader demographic and cultural shifts in the professional engineering world, demand that educators once again underscore the value of social skills and humanity to young engineers. Certain elements in courses offered in the Center for Leadership Education at Johns Hopkins University may offer effective ways to address this gap. These courses not only provide novel approaches to soft skills development but also present the value of these skills in ways that resonate more with students. Such innovative methods could offer a more compelling argument for the relevance of human skills in a modern engineering context.