A Communication Curriculum in Engineering Education: An Alternative Model

Typical model curricula in engineering disciplines assume that training in communication will occur early in the students' academic career in the courses taken to meet the general liberal arts requirements of the university. This paper argues that this assumption defines communication as a preliminary skill to be learned as a prelude to technical study. An alternative view perceives increasing sophistication in the technical disciplines as requiring a simultaneous increase in sophistication in communication. The Program in Scientific and Technical Communication at the University of Washington is designed according to the latter view. Our courses address the needs of engineers as these needs emerge and change across the academic and professional life of the engineer.