The heart of the BUILD program is the four flagship BUILD technical courses. A complete engineering education MUST go beyond technical skills. They need to be able to work in multidisciplinary teams, communicate effectively with both engineers and non-engineers, write project documentation, and attend to business concerns.

Like the technical courses, we need to somehow incorporate all of this without changing graduation requirements. The concept is to create special sections of existing classes: a section of English that focuses on technical writing and documentation, a Psychology section on teamwork, a Business class with a focus on entrepreneurial engineering, and an Economics course which teaches students to manage project scheduling and finances. These would fulfill the existing requirements for English as well as electives in Social Science, Business, and Economics.

We need to refrain from too much (well, from any) modification to graduation requirements. We are therefore not changing the requirements for any degrees.

The concept is to create special sections of existing classes. This varies from school to school, but as an example a school can host a section of English 101 that focuses on Technical Writing and Documentation, a section of Psychology 101 that focuses on Working in Teams, a Business class that focuses on Entrepreneurial Engineering, and an Economics course that focuses on managing project finances, and project Management. These fulfill the existing requirements for English, Social Science elective, and Business elective, and an Economics elective.

Example Softskill Courses

Technical writing and documentation

Psychology of teamwork

Business of entrepreneurial engineering

Economics of project management scheduling and finances

Summary: What’s in this for you?

Engineering is a human endeavor and the really successful engineers know more than just theory and math! Working with others is really important. If you want to be an entrepreneur, there’s more than engineering theory to master. You’re going to learn it all. And get good at it.