<p>I have a question for engineering graduates, those who have gone on to engineering grad school and/or industry.</p>
<p>I notice that in college exit surveys of engineering graduates, engineers consistently say that their undergraduate programs did not have adequate preparation in writing and communication, yet employers (and presumably grad programs) consistently look for strong writing and communication skills.</p>
<p>What writing and communication classes did you take as an undergraduate, how would you evaluate your writing/communication skills coming out of undergrad, were your writing/communication skills adequate for grad school and/or industry, and if not, what specific type(s) of additional writing/communication course(s) do you wish you had taken as an undergraduate?</p>
<p>Thanks for any insights you can provide!</p>
<p>I would say taking my English and speech classes seriously rather than coming with a “just to get it over with” attitude like most people. I constantly improve my essays than just turning them in with minor revisions, and getting up hyped for presentations by ummm getting hyped up lol. If available, you can join the school’s Toastmaster organization which aims to improve public speaking and leadership skills.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure that writing in a school setting does much to improve writing skills. I think getting some co-op experience where you might learn why you are writing and who you are writing to makes it more real and more applicable, and is therefore more beneficial. I don’t think you can learn to write when the “assignment” is to write 600 word on… In the real world the only people who care how many words are the newspapers that have to fill square inches with print or ads, and we all know how well those are doing. Your boss will want the minimum number of words to clearly explain whatever you need to explain…</p>
<p>In the 1980s I took advantage of a a “Technical Communication Concentration” offered at my college. </p>
<p>The TC Concentration consisted of 5 courses. Some of them overlapped with other degree requirements. My TC courses included Rhetoric, Speech (very helpful!), and Business Letter Writing (including resume review). All were beneficial and a nice break from the normal engineering courses. I did have to take two summer CC classes to fit everything in. It helped me get my engineering job.</p>
<p>Most high school and college writing courses involve writing about fictional literature, which is somewhat different from technical writing for either technical readers or non-technical readers.</p>
<p>If the college does not have a technical communication course and does not have communication-intensive in-major courses, then the next best thing would be to take communication-intensive courses in varied subjects.</p>
<p>At Michigan for Mechanical Engineering you take Lab I, which is all based around Tech Com in writing reports about our labs. We have lectures about Tech Com and write like 8 reports in the semester. </p>
<p>Everyone says that course is their least favorite in ME. I hate it. Everyone does. You get a bad team and you are in for a long semester</p>
<p>We also all have to take Lab II, which is basically the same thing, but fewer but longer reports and a more presentation aspect.</p>
<p>Also, all freshman have to take Engr 100 which involves writing short reports and proposals and stuff and has a Tech Com portion.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard Michigan does a lot more in this department then most other schools and even though all of the students hate it, it helps us in the long run.</p>
<p>I chose to take a technical writing class along with the required oral com and two semesters of written communication. I begin Technical Writing in the Spring. I hope to learn a lot from it, as others who took the class with this professor say they did. I will admit, I did treat the oral com class as a “just get through it class”, but still got an A. I think that I’ll voluntarily take another communications class later and take it more seriously. Maybe interpersonal communication since I already took oral com (where you just give speeches about a predetermined topic to the class.)</p>