Memorandum
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Mr. Altay GÑŒvenir, Chairman of CS Dept.
FROM:
Mr. Serkan Balci
DATE:
September 22, 2005.
SUBJECT:
English 401 Course
Dear Mr. GÑŒvenir,
Imagine our graduates being unable to convey even the simplest ideas to their colleagues or clients properly. This problem has become ominous since the departments decision of removing English 401 from the senior year curriculum.
There are three remarkable benefits that engineering students gain from the course.
Engineers often work in groups including other technical or business professionals. Former English 401 textbook has an article containing a survey on the extend of this collaboration. The survey was conducted by National Science foundation on 125 different proposals. 70% of these proposals involved extensive cooperation during the creation stage. Increasing the quality of this teamwork requires proper communication skills.
Companies do not want to waste valuable resources on the ineffectiveness of interactions between employees. Thus they to seek out individuals with good communication skills for hiring and promotion decisions. The same article has a survey asking 4057 veteran engineers what subjects are the most needed. 5 communication skills related subjects were ranked in the top 9. In a similar survey on University of California, Berkeley engineering alumni, 73% of the participants stated that writing skills had aided them in their careers.
Technical communication with non-professionals can be complicated by terminology and lack of elucidation. In another survey in that article, conducted on 182 senior officials, all participants were complaining about general foggy language. 169