Engineers as Communicators
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 6, Issue 3
I have a subject I think you will find interesting—the ability (or inability) of our engineering graduates to effectively communicate, both in writing and in speaking. Almost all of you will testify to the fact that the skill most lacking in our engineering graduates is their ability to communicate. This has been borne out by any number of articles written from surveys of engineering companies. At the universities, any civil engineering department will tell you they hear the same thing from their visiting committees, advisory boards, etc. At my university the students come in with somewhere around a 1350 on the SAT entrance examination and probably a 4.2 grade-point average (don't ask me how you can get more than a 4.0) from high school, so you would assume that their English skills would be quite good. For engineering students, however, this assumption is usually wrong. So, what's the reason for this phenomenon? This is a hotly debated subject and gets back to the educational value our kids are getting from our country's current K-12 educational efforts, which, incidentally, are quite different from when I was in the public school system. I'm not going to get into that debate because there are no winners there. Let's just say that our current engineering students don't appear to be as well prepared as they should be in the area of communication, nor do many of us feel that they are as prepared as we were. Regardless, it is a problem because our constituents—you readers—say it is, and I believe you. My personal belief is that these students were provided with adequate instruction in English in high school, but (1) were not challenged to become interested in taking it seriously because of an engineer's general lack of interest in this subject, and (2) because of grade inflation. Students likely were not given grades commensurate with what my English teacher would have considered poor or marginal performance. Therefore, because of this lack of a challenge, the students sort of “osmosed” through high school English hoping that they wouldn't have to see it again. Had they been given Cs or even Ds on high school papers, these intelligent young aspiring engineers would have risen to the occasion and improved markedly; but, because they were not challenged to improve, they left for college without the requisite communication skills.
Why I believe you
I teach an engineering ethics course that is quite subjective and a great forum for challenging student communication skills. I require students in this course to address case studies, to write about solutions to ethical issues from the case studies, and to prepare and make presentations of their findings. The speaking part is not much of a problem since I coach them on physically preparing the presentation and also on giving an acceptable speech addressing their findings. It's the written analyses of the cases that are disturbing—they're ordinarily abysmal! The first time that I graded papers in this course I couldn't believe what I was reading. The students not only lacked organizational skills, but they also seemingly lacked a reasonable background in rhetoric and grammar. My first response to this problem was to lecture on the subject, as best I could as an engineer, and to reinforce the fact that they would be expected to write well in their first engineering position after graduation. This did not seem to make much difference and I was at a loss. I was now challenging them, but I couldn't adequately address or correct their poor performance. Just as our Code of Ethics tells us that we cannot practice in an area in which we do not have the training or skills, I did not have the training or skills to correct English grammar and rhetoric.
What I did
Quite simply, bringing in the right person for the job would address the problem, so I hired a teaching assistant from the Department of English to grade all of the papers for composition while I still graded for content and logic. Man! You can't imagine the howl this brought from the students when I announced that a TA from the English department would grade them. I told them that they would just have to “suck it up” and show me that they could communicate effectively or they would receive a grade that honestly measured their overall performance, which included their ability to write well. Grades on the first assignment were about what they had been for the students during the previous terms. What was different, however, was that the TA not only graded, but made comments on what was wrong and how the student should go about correcting it in the future. The TA was also required to hold office hours and, after these first papers were returned, these office hours were filled. The students had been challenged by receiving grades they were not used to getting—grades that were a fair and realistic representation of their writing abilities. There were four writing assignments during the term, each graded for composition as well as content and logic. The content and logic grades remained the same (which, incidentally, were quite good), but the composition grades improved significantly with each assignment. By the end of the term almost all of the students were writing on an acceptable level—a level that an employer would certainly appreciate and a level that would no longer disparage the abilities of, at least these, new engineering hires.
Long-term solution
In a nutshell, engineering students are quite intelligent. These students, however, are not being challenged in K-12 regardless of the quality of the materials or the teachers, and therefore have formed incorrect and even dangerous attitudes about the amount of effort they need to apply in the area of written communication. In college they take one freshman composition course if they haven't already been exempted from it through advanced placement or some other program that allows entering freshmen to skip certain general education courses. As juniors engineering students take a technical writing course that is taught in very large classes by TAs, not professors. In this course students are not significantly challenged to improve their writing ability as much as their organizational ability and how to include bulleted points. In college there are very few times these engineering students are challenged to practice any of their learned writing skills. They are flat out just not challenged! The long-term solution is to include writing in most, if not all, of our engineering courses. The student's ability to write well should be evaluated by someone other than the engineering professor and should be evaluated with diligence. This would give the quite capable students the opportunity they need to practice their skills to the point that they don't atrophy for lack of use, and they will emerge from the university ready to communicate as you wish they could when you hire them.
What's your opinion?
I've briefly addressed what I consider to be a major problem with our system of educating engineering students. Incidentally, this inclusion of a significant writing requirement follows the BOK (Body of Knowledge) recommendations. I've also proposed a (not the) solution based on my experience and observations. I would challenge all of you who read this to send me your comments and your opinions. Is the lack of writing ability among new hires a real problem for you as employers and practitioners? Is this the approach you would recommend or do you have a better solution? Let me hear from you.
If you don't agree with this opinion or would like to comment, please don't hesitate to e-mail me ([email protected]) or give me a call. You can also write feature articles for this publication or submit Forum material that you think would be worth sharing with our other readers.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”
—ConfuciusYour faithful servant,Chick Glagola, P.E.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 6 • Issue 3 • July 2006
Pages: 89 - 90
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Published online: Jul 1, 2006
Published in print: Jul 2006
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