Successful Consulting Engineering: A Lifetime of Learning

Individuals pursue engineering education to obtain the technical knowledge necessary to pursue their dreams of practicing the engineering profession. However, proficiency in “soft skills” may have as great an influence over an engineer's overall career success as technical competence. Engineering education faces many challenges. It is difficult for institutions to provide in a typical undergraduate program a sound curriculum of engineering fundamentals combined with courses in soft skills. Most of these soft skills are developed and refined over a lifetime. Ultimately, it is up to the individual to pursue lifelong learning of these skills, and it is the role of employers and educators to instill in a student the need and desire to hone these skills for the rest of their professional career. This paper discusses (1) the need and importance of nontechnical skills to the consulting engineer; (2) the importance of providing basic soft skills training in engineering undergraduate programs; and (3) specific mea...