Engineers Learning People Skills, Too

Shankar Sastry is quoted in an article in the Associated Press yesterday about a change in producing engineering grads that are not only technically capable but able to communicate their expertise effectively.

Dean of the College of Engineering and Director of TRUST, Sastry is asking professors to take a more Socratic approach to teaching, that is, more discussion and less rote drilling.

"The days of boot camp -- where we say "Thou shalt study physics and mathematics and, oh by the way, you'll find out what's going to come out of this next year or the year after' -- I think are gone," says Sastry.