The Critical Role of Communication in Engineering Education

 “Without clear lines of communication, our ideas would stay within our own small

development teams instead of becoming mature products. While this is obvious to those

of us who have become experienced engineers, the real question is: Why is it lost to us

when we are engineering students?”

Akbar R Khan, Software Systems Engineer, USA,

“Good Communication Is Essential...” (2014)


My understanding of this quote is that through experiences in the real-world scenarios, people will develop the self-initiative to voice out their opinion, criticism or idea professionally towards any problem. This is a way to put themselves in the spotlight of their higher management to see them as someone with a passion to help the company grow in the right direction. However, as students, sometimes we prioritise grades over meaningful learning, therefore, we often take charge of individual work more than project work. Essentially, this means that group member expects another member to have the responsibility to step up and lead the project. The lack of motivation for students also plays a key factor as no matter how good their idea is, an 'A' on their result slip will be a sufficient award for them. Therefore, students often let ideas stay limited to their own project work.

As discussed with my partner, Justin Ng, we have a similar interpretation where we both mentioned how students often share their ideas only within their project groups. However, what we interpreted differently is that my focus was more towards students prioritising grades over meaningful learning and the lack of motivation, whereas Justin's point of view is that the students lack support, experience or backing needed for an idea to prosper.

Comments

  1. JavierSeptember 5, 2024 at 4:15 AM

    The interpretation of the quote really made me understand the quote further. The part explaining on why students are more inclined to not communicate, due to having a leader, is also very true. Students only wait till there is really a push factor, which is being in the workplace. Then only do they communicate their great ideas to more people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brad BlackstoneSeptember 6, 2024 at 7:27 PM

    Thanks for the interesting explanation, Bryan. I especially like learning about how you and your buddy had contrasting views.

    ReplyDelete

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