Task 3: The Importance of communication skills for engineers

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"I contend that we (engineers) are undervalued because of our widespread inability to explain what we do to the general public (and why is it so important). It is one of the hardest goal 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)

 I would like to share my views on this quote. I agree that it is hard to explain what the engineers do to the general public. To begin with, there are difficult concepts which might be hard for the general public to understand and to break down into easily understood concept is not an easy task. I think one of the reasons for engineers' inability to explain might be the usage of 'engineer language' which will create complication. I feel that this is why effective communication is important as it allows us to craft speech that will enhance the audiences' understanding(speaking in generic term). Effective communication can also improve the speaker's techniques in explaining concepts by using real life example where the audience can relate to instead of leaving it to one's imagination.

Comments

  1. VenjaminSeptember 9, 2019 at 5:47 AM

    Hi, I am Venjamin. I would like to apologize if I made any mistakes.
    1. "I agree that it is hard to explain what the engineers do to the general public. " I think that the 'do' has to change to does.
    2. "To begin with, there are difficult concepts which might be hard for the general public to understand and to break down into easily understood concept is not an easy task." I think it is not necessary for 'is not an easy task' because you have mentioned that it might be hard.
    3. I am not sure if there is a change of 3rd person perspective to 1st person perspective because you mention "engineer's inability" but at the subsequent sentence, it changes to "our".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kang LeNovember 29, 2019 at 3:44 AM

    Thank you Venjamin for your feedback.

    ReplyDelete

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