Communication Skills for the 21st Century Engineer

Engineering graduates require an ever-increasing range of skills to maintain relevance with the global environment of the new millennium. Communication skills are a vital component of this, recognised by academia and industry alike. It is one of 11 key outcomes required by an undergraduate engineering programme in the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 [1]. Such skills are essential for an engineer who aspires to carry out his/her professional practice in the global arena. Multilingual skills are considered a salient element in the make-up of the new global engineer. Yet there is ample evidence that graduate engineers lack the required standard of communication skills, particularly when compared to the needs of industry internationally [2][3]. Communication skills are a regular feature of an engineer’s job in industry; some graduates employed in industry have identified that education in communication skills needs to be improved given the demands encountered in industry [4]. Indeed, communication skills are considered to be a valuable career enhancer [5]. Inadequate and ineffective communication skills reflect badly on the individual and the profession. An insufficient level of communication skills instruction in engineering education generally only serves to undermine the whole profile of the professional engineer. This in turn affects recruitment and retention in engineering studies [6]. It has been stated that communication skills should Communication Skills for the 21st Century Engineer