AUS engineering students demonstrate communication skills

Engineering students from American University of Sharjah (AUS) held an engaging exhibition of their projects at the university's main building. Fifty teams of engineering junior-year students presented posters on subjects as diverse as "Wastewater Capture for University City," "Effective Detection of Stress Fractures in Highway Bridges" and "Solar Islands." The exhibition runs April 21-24.

To produce these posters, students worked in multidisciplinary teams drawn from civil, chemical, mechanical, electrical and computer engineering. The student teams were trained to conduct effective meetings, set planning goals, meet deadlines and document their work. Managing themselves and their peers, showing leadership, and evaluating self and team members formed part of this work.

Three posters were selected by a jury for recognition. The winning students were presented with certificates by Dr. Leland Blank, Interim Dean of the College of Engineering. The winning posters and teams were: "Carbon Reduction in Metropolitan Cities" by Ahmad Al-Marei, Rajah Bokhari, Ahmad Mansour and Dana Howashin; "Smart Garbage Collection System" by Diana Abousaid, Haya Hasan and Nada Abdelhafez; and "Artificial Heart Valves" by Eman Rabah, Mariam Moawad, Marina Moawad and Omar Abaza.

"The work is conducted in a language and communication course for undergraduate engineers in profession-oriented, collaborative communication and academic skills," said David Prescott, Associate Professor in the Department of English. "The course has been developed to address the need engineers have for competencies beyond a sound technical knowledge, engineering skills and technical writing ability. The event is an opportunity for teams to exhibit their work to an educated, non-specialist audience and demonstrate their professional communication skills in an authentic context," he added.

Recent engineering industry-based research has identified communication and behavioral deficiencies in graduating engineers. Emphasis on communication and teamwork informed by attributes of self-management, problem solving and mutual accountability are recognized as important needs by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET and are now required in undergraduate course material.

The bachelor of science programs in chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering offered by the AUS College of Engineering are accredited by ABET, http://www.abet.org, of the United States. AUS was the first university in the Gulf region and the second outside the United States to have its programs receive this accreditation.