Director of the Bowers Writers House Jesse Waters tells it like it is. For the past several years, he has hosted Super Science Saturday, a lecture series for whipping engineering students’ writing into shape.
Feb. 5, Waters Zoomed with a small group of Elizabethtown College’s engineering students to give the second talk in this semester’s iteration of the four-part series. The lecture, “Words, Words, Words: Mastering Economy in Written Reports,” established some practical advice on technical writing. Perhaps more interestingly, it offered insight into the importance and challenge of communication in the STEM field.
Waters says there may be some truth in the stereotype that engineers are introverts. Noticing a row of participant portraits at the top of his screen, the boxes all black besides names and crossed out mic icons, the professor explained himself. “Out of 11 of us, only four are visually representing themselves.”
With such shyness in the field, Waters says that engineers who can express themselves in a narrative way shine among the competition. For instance, writing an engineering blog demonstrates a “dynamic sense of caring about the industry.”
Confidence was a thread running the length of the presentation. Waters asks his engineering students to consider why they were not supposed to use the word “I” in their project reports.
One participant guesses, “‘I’ is something you find more in opinion pieces.”
Waters agrees, leaning in close to his camera so his face eats up half the screen: “Nobody cares about your opinion” when you are a “dopey undergrad.”
But the type of engineers who write for, say, Popular Mechanics use “I” all the time, maintains Waters. “I” connotes ownership and demonstrates a confidence and pride in one’s work.
However, being a superior communicator is not just gravy—it is a necessity for modern engineers. Waters says that STEM workers without writing skills put themselves “in a glass box.” He points to one of many crucial reasons for this—the recipients of engineering grants are often chosen by non-engineers.
To drive the point home, Waters compares an engineer not knowing how to write with “going onto the jobsite without knowing the difference between a Phillips head and a flathead screwdriver.”
For any Etown engineers intimidated by all this, here is the good news. Dean of the School of Engineering, Math & Computer Science Dr. Sarah Atwood, says Etown students are already in a comparatively good place. She says she feels that Etown is doing a good job preparing its engineering majors for workplace writing.
“I think we do a lot better than a lot of engineering programs on that and we’ve certainly gotten that feedback from our alumni as well,” Atwood said.
Atwood partly attributes this success to Waters. Engineering students consult with Waters during their capstone project just like they meet with their regular professor.
“It’s very unusual to have an engineering program that has a writer from the English department who’s really integrated with class the way that we integrate Jesse,” she said.
Atwood cannot go into specifics, but she says her department is considering ways to integrate Waters’ lessons even deeper into the program.
Atwood also notes, “Many of our engineers are more than engineers.” She cites Etown being a primarily liberal arts college with “self-selecting” for STEM students with diverse interests. Extracurriculars and double majors certainly cannot hurt students on their quest to communicate.
Like everything at Etown, the pandemic hit the engineering program hard. However, not everything is doom and gloom, especially when it comes to developing writing skills.
Dr. Atwood explains, “When COVID happened we put a little more emphasis on the documentation of the design projects rather than the building because we couldn’t be on campus to build.” This happy accident helped one graduate compose a quality capstone project report which landed him a job when he used it as a writing sample.
For engineering students looking to improve their writing, the next Super Science Saturday is Feb. 27, 11 to 11:40 a.m. This brief lecture ties in with the first two events in the series but can certainly be appreciated on its own. Visit https://www.etown.edu/centers/writershouse/events.aspx for the Zoom link.
