Communication aspects of ProSkills: a non-technical skill development and enhancement program for engineers

Engineers face a major decision relating to their careers. They can enter their profession, or they can become a successful professional. In both cases, a strong technical foundation is required. But, to be a truly successful professional, engineers must also develop and use many nontechnical skills. Professional engineers use a balance of technical and non-technical skills to achieve their highest level of success. Of the many non-technical skills needed to be successful, the most important is communication. In addition to documenting important information for their own reference, engineers need to effectively communicate with technical peers and with the non-technical community. This involves four types of communication: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This paper is a discussion of the communication aspects of ProSkills. ProSkills is a successful process developed by Fenn College of Engineering at Cleveland State University to enhance and expand a wide range of the non-technical skills engineering students must have to be successful. Unlike the classical approach used to teach written and oral communication in liberal arts courses or across the engineering curricula, ProSkills integrates communication skill enhancement within the existing technical curricula.