As a Biomedical Engineering student, I find that having the technical skills is quite essential when mingling and collaborating with other engineers. If you are not able to properly preach what you practice or share your knowledge, how else would projects be completed efficiently? I find that interpersonal skills are not necessarily taught in a typical class, although some professors may feel they are doing a helpful job at guiding a student to collaborate and communicate, there is a perhaps a misconception as some teams may not even be willing to work with some members of the group. Most companies assign teams based on the qualities and abilities of each member. In summary, I don't think there is necessarily a split between interpersonal skills and technical skills, but they are simply complimentary.
According to Daniel Goleman, success can be broken down to be 70% interpersonal skills and 30% technical knowledge. The idea of this balance being in favor of interpersonal skills is not what I am questioning. A Forbes article titled "Intelligence is Overrated: What You Really Need to Succeed" stated that this imbalance is actually 85% impersonal skills and 15% technical skills. The article goes on to give an example how customers will sacrifice quality of the product just to deal with a better salesman. In the engineering world, it is often preached how it doesn't matter how great your idea for a product is if you can't actually convey the idea and sell it to an audience. As biomedical engineering students who are paying for an education that places a lot of emphasis on technical skills and only a small amount on how to present information, do you think this is a proper investment or is this system backwards?
I think it's important to consider who your "customer" is. If you are trying to sell your device to a hospital, surgeon, etc. I think it's definitely important to have good interpersonal skills, while also having a basic knowledge of the product to answer their questions and present the benefits of your product vs the competitor's. However, this type of role describes what someone in Sales or Marketing would do, not necessarily an engineer. If a company is trying to pitch their device to a customer, they would bring someone from Sales/Marketing to make the personal connections and really sell them on the device, and also an engineer who has an intimate background in how the device functions. That way, each person could answer any type of question the customer has.
However, that's not to say engineers don't need interpersonal skills at all. Working in project teams is hugely important, so it's necessary to have good interpersonal skills to resolve conflicts should they arise and consider everyone's opinions when making decisions. Additionally, networking is extremely important if you want to move up within your company, so having good interpersonal skills is necessary so you can interact with various managers, directors, presidents, etc. within your organization.
As a student who is investing time and money into a master’s degree in engineering, I completely expect a technical heavy program rather than a program focused on growing interpersonal skills. I am not denying that finding success as a professional engineer can require a majority of interpersonal skill compared to technical knowledge, however I believe interpersonal skills are consistently developed in one’s daily encounters. I do not think it is necessary to spend money to develop these skills, especially by sacrificing technical knowledge within a technical field of study. Instead, students within this program should take advantage of every opportunity they get to improve their interpersonal skills both inside and outside the classroom. It is the responsibility of the student to acknowledge these skills and take the initiative to improve them at every chance they get.
I would agree that success is mainly based on interpersonal skills and the rest based on technical skills. Many companies do train new employees on company policy, procedure, software, etc. and usually colleagues help out newcomers with any tasks or protocol. However, the emphasis on technical skill differs dependent on which job you have (ex: you need to know more physics/ chemistry concepts in R&D vs. quality and compliance). I think college teaches you interpersonal skills outside of the classroom, such as joining clubs/ Greek organizations, doing research, and internships. It does seem like a scam to just learn technical skills in courses when there is less emphasis on classwork in the real world and more on your network and how well you can sell yourself. However, through coursework, you also learn time and stress management, which is very important in the workplace, and life in general.
According to Daniel Goleman, success can be broken down to be 70% interpersonal skills and 30% technical knowledge. The idea of this balance being in favor of interpersonal skills is not what I am questioning. A Forbes article titled "Intelligence is Overrated: What You Really Need to Succeed" stated that this imbalance is actually 85% impersonal skills and 15% technical skills. The article goes on to give an example how customers will sacrifice quality of the product just to deal with a better salesman. In the engineering world, it is often preached how it doesn't matter how great your idea for a product is if you can't actually convey the idea and sell it to an audience. As biomedical engineering students who are paying for an education that places a lot of emphasis on technical skills and only a small amount on how to present information, do you think this is a proper investment or is this system backwards?
The educational system is absolutely imbalanced. In the engineering field, there is no question that you need to understand engineering principles and basic premises in order to survive in the working world. But, you don't need to get a degree in engineering to know it or learn it and you can successfully compete against engineers in the job pool without it. I realized this when I started my first job and my colleagues were from other disciplines such as chemistry or business. The knowledge they had, their interpersonal skills and their adaptability made them just as competitive as me, a bio-medical engineer with tons of technical knowledge and plenty of experience putting it to use. Companies have a minimum for technical skills that you can learn on your own or through experience. And, learning rather than knowing technical skills is normal because companies prize your ability to learn, problem solve, adapt and communicate over what you did in school.
This is especially true for project managers. You need technical knowledge, but you also need communication, emotional intelligence, professionalism, confidence, multi-tasking, and leadership skills. The people who make the best impressions and climb up the ladder in their careers are those who can balance these things. It's really unfortunate that the education system doesn't emphasize this more or even really mention it, because these skills make all of the difference. I remember taking 5 to 6 classes of 4 credit courses at a time, and not one was public speaking, psychology, project management and etc in my undergraduate career. As much as I hated writing essays, those classes can teach so much to students who struggle with those skills.
According to Daniel Goleman, success can be broken down to be 70% interpersonal skills and 30% technical knowledge. The idea of this balance being in favor of interpersonal skills is not what I am questioning. A Forbes article titled "Intelligence is Overrated: What You Really Need to Succeed" stated that this imbalance is actually 85% impersonal skills and 15% technical skills. The article goes on to give an example how customers will sacrifice quality of the product just to deal with a better salesman. In the engineering world, it is often preached how it doesn't matter how great your idea for a product is if you can't actually convey the idea and sell it to an audience. As biomedical engineering students who are paying for an education that places a lot of emphasis on technical skills and only a small amount on how to present information, do you think this is a proper investment or is this system backwards?
The educational system is absolutely imbalanced. In the engineering field, there is no question that you need to understand engineering principles and basic premises in order to survive in the working world. But, you don't need to get a degree in engineering to know it or learn it and you can successfully compete against engineers in the job pool without it. I realized this when I started my first job and my colleagues were from other disciplines such as chemistry or business. The knowledge they had, their interpersonal skills and their adaptability made them just as competitive as me, a bio-medical engineer with tons of technical knowledge and plenty of experience putting it to use. Companies have a minimum for technical skills that you can learn on your own or through experience. And, learning rather than knowing technical skills is normal because companies prize your ability to learn, problem solve, adapt and communicate over what you did in school.
This is especially true for project managers. You need technical knowledge, but you also need communication, emotional intelligence, professionalism, confidence, multi-tasking, and leadership skills. The people who make the best impressions and climb up the ladder in their careers are those who can balance these things. It's really unfortunate that the education system doesn't emphasize this more or even really mention it, because these skills make all of the difference. I remember taking 5 to 6 classes of 4 credit courses at a time, and not one was public speaking, psychology, project management and etc in my undergraduate career. As much as I hated writing essays, those classes can teach so much to students who struggle with those skills.
From my personal educational experience so far and from what I've learned about the success of companies and businesses, it is my belief that the importance of interpersonal skills far exceeds that of technical knowledge. However, as already mentioned, the exact ratio in comparing these two things is up for interpretation. Personally, I agree with Daniel Goleman's theory of 70% interpersonal skills to 30% technical knowledge as it is a happy medium between a 50:50 ratio and the 85% to 15% ratio mentioned in the Forbes article. Although I agree with the Forbes article to a certain degree, 15% technical skills does not seem sufficient enough for most projects to be successful, especially in the engineering field. As far as whether or not a biomedical engineering education that focuses primarily on the technical side is worth the investment, I would have to say, yes, I still believe it is a quality educational experience. This is because, for the most part, interpersonal skills are not a tangible thing that can be taught by professors. Interpersonal skills are learned through experience, whether that be general life experience or group projects in school. The more that students are put into group situations, the better their people skills will be, and they will start to realize that being able to work well with others toward a common goal is far more vital to having a successful overall experience.
I think that it is a reasonable investment solely because without technical knowledge you cannot be an engineer. That is the basis on which you go to school; i.e while there are many other scenarios in which you can learn interpersonal/social skills, getting trained in engineering is generally only accessible to those who go to engineering schools.
That being said, I do think that good interpersonal skills make for better engineers. It's in addition to skillsets though. If two people have the same skill level but one is antisocial and the other works great with teams, then the more social of the two is better for the position. If two people have the same level of social intelligence but only one is an engineer, then the position can really only go to the engineer who has engineering experience.
I also do feel as if NJIT does a good, albeit subtle, job of weeding out students who are not socially competent enough to work in teams. While knowledge of engineering comes first, most classes require a level of teamwork that, if you cannot provide, prevents you from easily passing.
In today's world, interpersonal skills are sought after despite the fact that technical skills are very important, but then it varies with profession. While certain technical skills are necessary for any position, employers look for people with interpersonal skills and that's because one can be trained in technical skills than on interpersonal skills. As an engineer, having the technical skills is very important as well as interpersonal skills because they both work hand in hand for you to stand out in the job market. on the other hand, as a project manager, you need more interpersonal skills because without that you cannot be successful. People expect you to deliver, even with multiple technical challenges.
That being said, with an imbalanced world and industries out there, both interpersonal skills and technical skills are needed to stand out. Yes, Interpersonal skills will not be taught to the extent technical skills are been taught but as you become experts in your profession and all the tools needed as an engineer are taught, with time you tend to develop some of this interpersonal skills as you work on various projects, with deadlines in school, it trains you to have or develop work ethics, time management and working to be on track before a deadline.
As a graduate student in the BME department, in my opinion, as Dr. Simon said in the first week’s lecture, interpersonal skills are probably the majority of each project manager needs to have to be successful in projects managing and based on Daniel Goleman’s book (Emotional Intelligence) our success is based on seventy percent on our Interpersonal Skills plus thirty percent on our Technical Knowledge, so how we manage, how we handle other people emotions, how we guess their emotion, how we communicate, how we get connections and generally our interpersonal skills is very important.
According to Daniel Goleman, success can be broken down to be 70% interpersonal skills and 30% technical knowledge. The idea of this balance being in favor of interpersonal skills is not what I am questioning. A Forbes article titled "Intelligence is Overrated: What You Really Need to Succeed" stated that this imbalance is actually 85% impersonal skills and 15% technical skills. The article goes on to give an example how customers will sacrifice quality of the product just to deal with a better salesman. In the engineering world, it is often preached how it doesn't matter how great your idea for a product is if you can't actually convey the idea and sell it to an audience. As biomedical engineering students who are paying for an education that places a lot of emphasis on technical skills and only a small amount on how to present information, do you think this is a proper investment or is this system backwards?
Earnestly, this ultimately depends on the role you have as an engineer in your respective company. If you solely are performing validations of software in the biomedical field or perform statistically driven gage tolerance based process verifications, then technical skills weigh heavily where you may want to flip the interpersonal skills to 15% and technical skills to 85%. If you are working in an engineering company where you centralized in a regulatory role or marketing/sales role, then your interpersonal skills should be 85% and your technical skills be 15% since you need a firm understanding of how the product works to be able to communicate efficiently to others on why they can trust your product.
Then in R&D, there is a large grey area on where engineers fall. You should have the ability to understand or design a product such that you know how things should normally engage during a surgical procedure (in the case of a biomedical engineer at least) or what areas of concern may induce a failure mode. You should also have the ability to communicate with your team and anyone within senior leadership your thoughts as if they were non-technical. I think there should be a more fluid balance dependent on your role that you should figure out well. Whether you work in a lab where technical skills are desired to ensure quality in your tests or you work in the operating room trying to sell a surgeon on why this implant should be their top choice, I think investment in both interpersonal and technical skills is important to know from a role perspective that one must personally decide on; I think education should still focus on the hard skills where the soft skills will naturally be invested into once one figures what their career path is choosing for them and for them to focus on dedication time away from designing a prototype and more time in public speaking events.
As a someone who has worked in a field with less than the expected technical knowledge, I do wish there was more of a focus at NJIT on interpersonal skills in the curriculum. The issue is that I do not believe there is really a viable way for training many interpersonal skills. This is because the times when you need interpersonal skills the most is usually high-pressure situations where you do not have a chance to retry if you fail. While this is possible to recreate in classes it often falls somewhat flat. This can be because you know your audience too well, because this is a presentation that has been critiqued by the audience before, or many more reasons. But the difficulty of having classes focus on these topics is also what pushes professors and the NJIT administration to getting students internships.
Because the skills cannot be taught in a classroom then the school just tries to get the students to learn in the real world where previous generations learned the same skills. There are negatives to this though as students that either are unable to or choose not to take internships thus fall behind in developing key skills for once they are part of the industry.
In terms of the high emphasis on technical skills in the education we receive as biomedical engineering students, I believe it is a worthy investment. Nonetheless, I would agree that there needs to be a reasonable incorporation of projects that require the use of interpersonal skills in the classes we take. Despite this, I believe that the extent to which it can be taught in classes is limited and agree with a prior response that a lot of these interpersonal skills are acquired outside of the classroom by partaking in extracurricular activities. Personally, I think the best way to improve on interpersonal skills is through real-life experiences that can be obtained through areas such as internships. From my own experience, I believe the greatest improvement in my interpersonal skills was obtained through an internship I had during my senior year of my undergraduate degree. The reason for this is that due to the nature of the internship, I was constantly placed in scenarios requiring me to interact with new people in not only my department, but other departments as well. In this scenario, interpersonal skills were important for my role as a member of the new product development team because my tasks were contingent on receiving items such as parts in a timely manner from other departments. Therefore, interpersonal skills played an important factor in this regard as I collaborated with other individuals to complete tasks. As a result, I believe it is important for schools to host career fairs and promote students to obtain internship to acquire interpersonal skills.
I agree with many of the previous posts who believe that as biomedical engineers, it is imperative for students to obtain the technical skills necessary to be biomedical engineers through classroom study. At the end of the day, any relevant full-time position that biomedical engineers have require technical skills. On the other hand, interpersonal skills are what ultimately help these biomedical engineers have better opportunities moving forward. When discussing classroom study, I believe classroom study could try to do better in the development of interpersonal skills within students. However, I also understand that there is only so much more that can be done. Personally, I am in strong agreement with others who claim that extracurriculars and other out-of-classroom experiences are what truly help to develop interpersonal skills. In fact, in my freshman year of college, I joined the Biomedical Engineering Society and became the Vice President of the organization soon after joining. Through this extracurricular, I learned a lot about networking with others, which helped me obtain my first internship. I did not have much technical knowledge by this point, but I had developed some interpersonal skills, which is what ultimately helped me receive the opportunity. To add on, the internship further helped me develop my interpersonal skills as well. Therefore, based on personal experiences, I know that interpersonal skills can be developed through extracurriculars and other out-of-classroom activities. In the end, I agree that technical knowledge is necessary, especially for biomedical engineers, but also believe that the development of interpersonal skills is just as important.
First off, I will agree with the view that colleges emphasize on technical knowledge over interpersonal skills. The best example of this is the emphasis on tests where your ability to memorize facts is more important than your communication skills.
I also agree with posts above that state that the reason for this discrepancy is that technical knowledge is harder to acquire than interpersonal skills. The amount of people who qualify to teach you to be a better speaker greatly outnumber the number of people who can give you the technical knowledge to be an engineer. Thus, I think that it would be reasonable for colleges to expect students to source a part of their interpersonal skills from another source. However, I do think that courses (like this one) benefit greatly from having an outlet for communication and expression.
