<p>Yeah I did not realized on how important grammatical skill is for engineering until now. I always make excuses of getting average grades in my English composition classes because English is not my first language. I guess that I have to take the basic writing classes next semester to improve my skills.
@NeoDymium I have purchased the book that you recommended. Thank you for your suggestions.</p>
<p>Writing skills are very important to an engineer. You don’t need to be able to write the next great novel. But you do need to be very precise in what you say. Small errors in language can lead to big misunderstandings in what you are trying to convey. Those errors can be very costly.</p>
<p>You also need to get to the point as quickly as possible. You are being paid to write those words and someone else will be paid to read and interpret those words. Extra words that do not enhance one’s understanding of the material being conveyed will cloud the subject and cost money.</p>
<p>Poor language skills would have definitely caused me not to hire a person, especially when I many others with good engineering skills AND good language skills.</p>
<p>pvt - Per your posts, you have a decent grasp of the English language. Check to see if your campus has a writing workshop available. That would be an easy way to refine your style.</p>
<p>Writing does not need to be “flowery”. In fact, often concise bullets work best. For many engineering reports, you’ll need skills to merge in graphics/charts too. </p>
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<p>Being able to write concisely is important for an engineer. I frequently read technical documents written by others, and I hate it when they are unnecessarily long. I’m busy - get to the point! When writing a report, it is important to consider who the audience is, and make your writing choices accordingly. How much background is necessary? How much detail is required? Would any figures or graphs help? etc.</p>
<p>You can improve your writing by frequent proof-reading. It is especially useful to prepare your assignments in advance of the due date, so that you have a chance to re-read a paper a day or two after it was originally written. That helps it be a bit less fresh in your mind, so that you have a chance of noticing that you didn’t put down on paper what was in your mind. Also, do you have any fellow student friends who you can ask to proof-read your reports and give you feedback? Does your University have a writing center, where you can work with a peer tutor who will review your writing and give feedback? When my daughter was in high school, I would occasionally proof-read papers that she had written, and she was really bad with the overuse of “it” when it was unclear to me what the “it” was referring to. I kept pointing that problem out to her, and she eventually got more careful and stopped doing that so much. </p>
<p>Perhaps a technical writing class would be useful. Given that English isn’t your first language, you will probably have to work harder at it than some of your classmates. But, given that you previously said that you are interested in management, improving your written (and perhaps verbal) communication skills in English is essential. </p>
<p>^
Thank you for your advice. I really want to be a well-rounded engineer, so I am going to take a technical writing class next semester. </p>
<p>I was reading some of the advices on the first few pages, I don’t see how people said “Oh you could have the best gpa in the world but if you aren’t the best at communication skills such as interviews, you won’t be hired”. What kind of advice is this ? They want an engineer not someone making sales, Having good interview skills is the least of an engineer’s worry, I don’t think its your interview that was a turn off for them @ptvo90. </p>
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All evidence to the contrary. Hiring managers consistently mention the importance of communication skills to the hiring decision - indeed, some of the people commenting on this thread have been in the position of hiring engineers!</p>
<p>You may not feel that communications skills are not important, but they are. Relatively few engineering jobs these days are solitary. Engineers need to communicate clearly, effectively, and efficiently with coworkers, managers, and yes, even customers - if your product is sold to another company (as opposed to directly to consumers) then you can expect, as an engineer, to be called to talk to the customers about the technical details for which you are responsible. I was talking to VP’s at fortune 500 companies a month after I started my first engineering job! The best technical solution in the world is useless if it doesn’t mesh with the rest of the system because you couldn’t communicate effectively with your team, or if it goes unused because you leave and no one can understand your documentation, or if the customer doesn’t understand or trust your statements when you try to explain the technical details.</p>
<p>So absolutely develop the technical skills, but don’t act like the communication skills aren’t important.</p>
<p>It’s not really communication skills as much as being able to work effectively with others. They’re not looking for guys that can’t work with others or can only do designs and calculations themselves because the industry is mostly built on cooperation.</p>
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<p>It absolutely is communication skills in addition to being able to work well with others. As an engineer, you are designing new products, coming up with new ideas, and generally just doing a bunch of things that require you to communicate your ideas to others effectively in writing and verbally in order to make the product work. If you have poor communication skills, you could be the “best” engineer in the world and still be a terrible engineer because no one knows what you are doing and can’t build on what you do.</p>
<p>From Akin’s Laws:</p>
<ol>
<li>A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.</li>
</ol>
<p>hmm you guys make really good points, especially @cosmicfish . I always thought engineers are usually independent in building things and just need to get the job done without having to cooperate with others but I guess its more important the other way. Well my communication skills are average although I like to work independently, I just thought that Gpa/experience has a greater weightage over something stupid like “good interview skills” since companies just want engineers to just get the job done. Sorry if my statements sounds dumb don’t judge me Dx</p>
<p>I have worked on many a project where my collaborators are some distance away (from a couple of buildings away to on the other side of the world). Miscommunication between engineers can turn very costly, time consuming and many times dangerous. Maybe there was a time when a solitary engineer could accomplish big things, but in this day and age not.</p>
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Wow, this is one of the most inaccurate things I’ve heard in a while. I’m sure it comes from someone who doesn’t have any actual engineering work experience. In my 25 years of engineering and engineering management experience, I’ve always worked on teams. </p>
<p>Hiring managers are demanding - we want both strong technical skills and strong communication skills for engineering positions (at least I do). For someone interested in engineering management, communication skills are probably more important. Technical skills still matter, but once a certain level of technical competency has been reached, the better communicator will get the management job before the better technical person.</p>
<p>@saachi umm lol is it obvious that i don’t have any engineering work experience ? lol because it is true, but still it depends on what engineering type you are, DUH! Not all engineers need the same skills… #Justsaying</p>
<p>@Shipsarecool Yes, even without reading the opening post, it is obvious you don’t have engineering experience. You are, of course, correct that not all engineers need the same set of skills. However, there are some skills that essentially every engineer needs to have to be successful, and one of those is communication skills. I’d estimate that well over 90% of engineers need those skills. That may be too conservative an estimate.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad I need to work on my communications skills then lol, what course do you think is the best to take in college to have better communications skill ?</p>
<p>@Shipsarecool Well if the program you will be attending is any good, there will be ample opportunity built into the curriculum for written reports and presentations related to labs and projects. Just take those seriously and you should most likely be able to sharpen your communication skills. If you still feel like you are behind, I am sure your university would offer a public speaking sort of course and any number of courses that involve lots of writing.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad Thanks those are reeally good ways to sharpen my communications skills lol, I will NEVER take public speaking lol, I can’t speak in public if my life depended on it lmao.</p>
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Your life won’t, but your career might! For a given value of public, that is - as a junior engineer you are unlikely to be addressing more than a dozen people at a time on any regular basis, but as a senior engineer or manager you may be facing a much higher number, on either a formal or informal basis! You have to remember that the design team for a complicated product can involve dozens of people, with dozens more involved in a auxiliary or supervisory roles.</p>
<p>@Shipsarecool Well, I’m glad to see you are so committed to bettering yourself and becoming a successful engineer. Keep up the good work.</p>