ABSTRACT
Professional engineers operate in an increasingly sophisticated, global world. Often working on international projects or in international locations, engineers must be agile team players, adept communicators, reflective, and able to operate effectively within an interdisciplinary and multi-cultural working environment. Professional engineers operate in an environment where non-technical issues are important – and sometimes are paramount – therefore explore the potential content of liberal studies topics and how they might be integrated into a programme for professional engineers as the means of educating engineers in the context of the development of a totally new engineering programme, provisionally called Liberal Engineering. Successive governments have highlighted the “skills agenda,” the need for workforce skills to match those required by employers, since this is highly associated with economic growth. Universities are considered paramount in delivering on this, by producing graduates who are both academically capable but also equipped with an array of soft skills.
