Professional communication skills for engineering professionals

Oral and written communication proficiency is an important professional skill for engineering graduates. However, developing these skills is often poorly integrated into the engineering curriculum. We present a three year integrated approach to developing professional competence in oral and written communication, which has been implemented in the IT engineering program at a Swedish research university. In the paper we describe the educational approach, the nature of assessment items and measures taken to ensure progressive skills development in order to ensure that graduates emerge with fully fledged communications skills. The goal of the paper is to describe a successful model for professional skills development, and to encourage a continuing dialogue on how to best equip students with communication skills for professional practice.