Soft skills in engineering education: A practical experience in an undergraduate course

Current society demands not only more engineers, but better ones, equipped with abilities to solve complex technical challenges, working in interdisciplinary teams and dealing with social and cultural issues as well. These non-technical requirements, usually designated as “soft skills”, are being required by accreditation boards, engineering schools' authorities and the industry itself, lengthwise and crosswise the whole world. This paper describes the methodology developed by its authors in order to integrate the teaching and practice of "Soft Skills" in an undergraduate engineering course without sacrificing, by doing so, the specific subjects that the syllabus requires.