Developing Leadership and Global Professional Engineer Competences in Our Students

In order to properly address the issues of today´s global world, the importance of engineering students acquiring leadership and professional skills has increased tremendously. In fact, leadership is one of the basic pillars for global economic development. By immersing oneself in an engineering organization or honor society, one learns to cultivate a team-work mentality that will be invaluable in the future society. Global engineering organizations, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and Tau Beta Pi Honor Society, have student chapters that offer opportunities to develop those critical leadership skills needed to become an essential asset in the problem solving required to keep the world progressing to its full potential. Throughout this paper, engineering students give the first-person accounts of how becoming a leader within their respective organizations has transformed their undergraduate degree experience. These students have gone on to establish other organizations at Florida Atlantic University that have also enhanced the educational experience of other students and illustrate the importance of emphasizing leadership skills in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics fields.