Oral Communication: A Course Of Action For An Engineering Department

As students and faculty become more and more attuned to the real world and the requirement that graduating engineers be multi-faceted, the importance of skill in oral presentation will grow exponentially in departments of engineering. There are many things that can be done within any engineering department to foster presentation skill. Simple practical methods ingrained in courses, extra-curricular activities, and simple contacts can improve the quality of our students. The steady progression of oral communication skill within a curriculum will help to make a graduating engineer a complete individual. Introduction As recent comments from an evaluator for ABET show, presentation skills are vital for engineering, All departments need to show their concern for this area of expertise. Specific identification of location in the curriculum where students will become acquainted with the needs to communicate orally must be easily recognizable. It is no longer enough to speak about the needs or to expect that others at some unknown locations will pass on the tools. For those departments that do not allow students to enter the programs until their junior year it is critical that a mechanism be in place within the department to ensure that engineering graduates possess all those traits that the world expects of them.