Exploring the Critical Need for Interpersonal Skills in Engineering Students

Interpersonal Skills for Engineers (ENGR 100) is a course designed to provide all students in the College of Engineering (COE) an opportunity to learn the non-technical skills that will be critical to them throughout their careers.For years, the college's industry partners commented that our students were highly proficient technically but lacked the personal skills that make a great employee.To deal with these comments, the Dean instituted an avenue for all students in the college to develop these skills.As part of this initiative, new courses were developed.This paper will discuss the various skills taught in these courses and their importance to the students and the industry.This paper is a review of the literature on the need for teaching interpersonal skills to Construction and Engineering (CE) Industry students.It also reviews qualitative data collected over the period from 2015 to 2022.The qualitative results show that literature reinforces what industry has been saying for the past decade.CE students have been well prepared with the technical skills necessary to make their mark in the industry but, for the most part, are lacking in the interpersonal skills to become effective managers and leaders.The literature and data from students clearly show the importance of teaching interpersonal skills to CE students.Although teaching these skills has been widely overlooked for decades, there seems to be a new cadre of academics who are heeding the advice of industry and are becoming more receptive to their importance.