Making a modern engineer: The

skills students need to

succeed
By intouch posted 23 January 2019 21:11

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The world of work is rapidly

changing, and the skills
required tomorrow may be very
different to those needed
today.
 While problem-
solving will always be the domain of the civil engineer, advances in technology,
such as machine learning and robotics, means that much of the technical grunt
work may soon be handed to robots. Where does this leave tomorrow’s
engineering graduates and what skills should they be learning to ensure they
remain relevant and ready for the job?

Automation is transforming workplaces. As a result, about 70% of young

Australians are starting their first job in roles that will either look different or
simply won’t exist in the next 10-15 years. The Foundation for Young Australians’
New Work Smarts 2017 report shows that as technical skills are more likely to
be automated than human-centred ‘soft’ skills, workers must become better
problem solvers and communicators. The study predicts that workers will use
soft skills for an average of 12 hours each week by 2030, which represents a
90% increase from what’s required today. Critical thinking will account for 15
hours each week (up 40%). Empathy, persuasion and listening skills will also be
used 17% more each week in 2030.

Fortunately for the engineers of tomorrow, these are all skills being taught at
leading Australian universities today.

Making a modern engineer

One of the best ways to prepare students for the future world of work is to have
them solve real-world problems. At Charles Sturt University, engineering is
taught without lectures and exams. The engineering program offers a Master’s
level qualification and is studied over a five-anda-half-year period. The first 18
months of study are based at CSU’s custom-built engineering facility in Bathurst.
After this, students complete four year-long placements while finishing their
study online.

“We start with authentic projects and then we move into actual work,” says
Professor Euan Lindsay, Foundation Professor of Engineering at Charles Sturt
University.

“If you’re a student and you get something wrong on an assignment, you just lose
a few marks. If you’re out working with an organisation or local government and
you make a mistake on the design of a roundabout, you have to rip the whole
thing out and start again. There are real consequences to the decisions that our
engineering students make and it gives their learning a practical context.”

A similar philosophy underpins Swinburne’s Engineering Practice Academy, a

simulated workplace with a project-based curriculum co-created with around 50
industry and local government partners. The curriculum is built on four pillars –
social impact and engagement, emerging technologies, research and
development, and entrepreneurship – and students work on industry projects
within each pillar every six weeks.

The aim, says Dr Llewellyn Mann, director of STEM Transformations at

Swinburne’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, is to produce
graduates with a broad, agile skillset, including strong communication skills and
entrepreneurial thinking.

“Within the Engineering Practice Academy, we’re doing a lot research around
what we think the future of engineering practice looks like and we recognise
that pockets exist now,” Mann says.

“These include a greater focus on engaging with community and using emotional
intelligence to really understand the problems people are facing that engineers
need to solve.”

Meanwhile, at University of Queensland, civil engineering students studying the

four-year Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), have an opportunity to join the
faculty’s Icarus Program, which involves working on a range of real-life projects
across 13 civil disciplines and inter-disciplinary areas.

Recent projects have ranged from improving Brisbane’s CityCat public

transportation mode to gathering data about the fire dangers presented by
Christmas trees.

“It’s not part of the formal training,” says Professor Simon Washington, Head of
School, Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland.
“It’s basically problem-driven learning that focuses on a real-world problem and
it’s extremely practical.

Speaking a new language

A new focus is being placed on engineers’ communication skills. Lindsay says
engineering students must learn to consider a wide range of perspectives.

“A challenge new engineers will have is in understanding that not everybody

thinks like they do and that being right is not enough,” he says.

“There is such a proliferation of data today and engineers have an increasing

ability to gather more information and to understand the world better than ever
before, but we’re going to have to then explain this to people who don’t have that
technical understanding. Good engineering is about people, and most people
aren’t like us, so we have to be able to communicate to them.”

These skills are put to the test at CSU’s annual Community Day, where members
of the community, including school children, are invited to visit its engineering
facility and ask questions about projects.

“We make it very clear to students that their design will not just have a technical
review, but they are also going to have to explain to non-engineers why it’s the
right choice.”

Students at CSU also work in teams to help foster collaboration.

“We have teams within our teams and one of the challenges is to use or test the
other team’s design,” Lindsay says. “ This allows them to gain experience at
being users of a design, just like the general public, so it helps them to build
their sense of empathy."

Building business acumen

Mann agrees that empathy and collaboration are vital skills for the engineers of
tomorrow.

“For a long time, engineers were trained to operate in silos,” he says.

“They thought they could just do the engineering bit and let other people worry
about the business side. I think one of the big things we’re seeing in all
engineering practice is the necessity not just for engineers to be able to work
with people from other non-engineering disciplines, but they themselves have to
learn at least some basics of what those disciplines actually do”.

Business acumen is an important skill for engineers of tomorrow. At UQ,

Washington says students are taught about disruptive business models.

“Technical skills will always be required, and I don’t see that changing, but we
are seeing a growing need to understand disruption,” he says.

“We have non-traditional companies, such as Google, becoming involved in

transport, for example, and presenting very different business models. So we
need to be teaching our students about this kind of disruption and the impact it
may have on engineering.”

Engineers of tomorrow must be equipped to respond to more complex

challenges, such as smart city solutions and complex transport networks. This
requires more than technical skills.

“We need much broader, well rounded engineers who can communicate and
empathise,” Mann says.

“It’s what employers are looking for, because a lot of the fundamental technical
analysis is done by computers these days.”

Do students feel ready for tomorrow?

Many universities are transforming their approach to engineering studies in
response to the changing world of work. However, Sloan Trad, a PhD student in
the Faculty of Engineering and IT University of Technology Sydney, believes
more engineering courses should take a practical approach to learning. “It’s like
that famous quote from Benjamin Franklin,” Trad says. “’Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn’. I feel like universities are still
caught up in a kind old-school of thought, which is that knowledge is passed on
rather than created.”

Scott McKeon, who graduated from civil engineering at UTS this year, believes
he has the practical experience needed for the world of work. “I think UTS is
very good at preparing students for the workforce, especially through its diploma
of engineering practise, where you gain experience working full time in an
engineering role,” he says. “It helps to contextualise the things you lean at uni. I
think you get more out of the practical stuff than you do out of the theory.”

With information is so readily available via the internet, McKeon believes that
lectures and tutorials should be more collaborative. “They should form an
entertaining discussion,” he says. “The focus should be on working on really cool
projects and there should be a centralised area for research and applying
learning in really cool ways. That’s what the future of engineering degrees are
working towards.”

Trad says more universities should focus on collaboration rather than

competition. “I feel that universities look at who get the highest marks rather
than saying, ‘okay, let’s all work together to try and make our world and make
our societies and communities a better place to live’. That’s what engineers do
in the workplace. They collaborate with other disciplines and they try to work
together to try to come up with a solution for society.”

What engineering students are being

taught today
The engineering practice of the 21st century is vastly different to what was
known before. The next cohort of civil engineers must respond in new ways to
solve new challenges created by increases in technology and burgeoning
populations. Leading universities are preparing them for the work of the future
by giving them real-world, practical problems to solve today. They are also
teaching them skills that go beyond technical know-how. These include:

Enterprise skills
Enterprise skills include a combination of competencies such as commercial
awareness, creative thinking, time management and problem-solving skills.

Soft skills
These human-centred skills include communication skills to help engineers
explain complex problems, and emotional intelligence to promote greater
empathy.

Collaboration
Engineers of tomorrow cannot work in silos, and universities are taking a team-
based approach to learning. This also helps students to gain greater empathy for
the general public that they will be solving problems for in the future.

This story was first published in the November/December edition of inspire

magazine. Read the original and more here.