Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Professional Skills Course at an Electrical Engineering School

This paper describes a case study of an innovative approach to teaching at an engineering school. The postgraduate course Project Work and Communication in Research and Development (R&D) was developed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The main aim of the course was to make the entry of young engineering graduates into the business environment as easy as possible. Currently, engineers are facing more and more interdisciplinarity and project work in their daily assignments. The course was designed to remedy any deficiencies in the multidisciplinary professional skills and knowledge of the graduate-level students, and it covered the topics of innovation management, communication in R&D, project management, and problem solving in teams. An end-of-course survey showed positive feedback from participating students. The empirical data (enrollment ratio of students, session attendance ratio, and average student grade) proves that the course met its goal of honing the professional skills of postgraduate engineering students.