Cultivation of Engineering Soft Skills Within the Constraints of a Prescribed Curriculum

Engineering soft skills are required of an engineer to excel in his/her career and profession. For engineering education institutions affiliated to a central university and working with a prescribed curriculum, it is often difficult to find time for real-world training of students in soft skills. The current paper summarizes the programs designed for undergraduate engineering students of an affiliated engineering institution in order to circumvent this problem. They integrate training in engineering soft skills with the regular academic schedule exerting minimal extra-loading for the students and ensuring individual attention. The distribution of training programs in time also facilitates natural and gradual development of the values, attitudes and soft-skills. Further, integration of soft skill training programs into regular academic schedule enhances the interest of students in academics.Copyright © 2009 by ASME