The Impact of Educational Partners in the Development of Technical and Soft Skills in Undergraduate Engineering Students

Competency-based education has had very active development in recent years. Different educational models, based on projects, problems, and practices, have been used in Engineering faculties to develop the graduate competencies of new engineers. However, the didactic technique of Challenge Based Learning (CBL) has been the one that has recently had not only the greatest acceptance but also the greatest success in the labor market. For this model, the design of the challenges is fundamental, and the role of training partners, especially external ones, companies, non-governmental organizations, or government institutions that provide, together with teachers. These challenges have the purpose of developing different types of skills. In this report, we analyze the role of these training partners in developing, evaluating, and applying both, technical and soft skills in real environments of the current labor market. Students who participate in this CBL fully developed competencies. CBL is very demanding for universities, professors and students.