The Importance of Communication Skills for Engineers

In our first lesson in class, we were given a short task of explaining a given quote amongst our peers. The quote that I received is, 

    “I contend that we (engineers) are undervalued because of our widespread inability to explain what we do to the general public (and why it is so important). It is one of the hardest goals to accomplish, to be able to boil down difficult concepts into a short and easily understood presentation or elevator pitch.” Marybeth Miceli, President, Miceli Infrastructure Consulting, USA (2011).

Quote that my peers and I received we concluded that the meaning of this quote is as engineers, we may have difficulties telling people and sharing our knowledge with those who lack have not much knowledge in engineering. therefore it is tough for those to absorb and understand the information that we engineers would like to convey to them. Hence, it is important as engineers to convey our information and knowledge in a simple definition or come up with visual aid to assist them to understand better the information that is passed to them. 

In a nutshell, this would increase the engineering presentation and build more interest in our audience.