Teaching professional skills in microwave circuit design classes

摘要

In addition to solid grounding in technical skills of their chosen specialty, engineering students are expected to also acquire various professional skills during their studies. One description of such skills is given by various accreditation agencies, e.g., ABET. Arguably, need for extensive training in the area of professional skills is even more important for graduate students. In this paper we describe a somewhat expanded set of these skills and how they are honed in two senior / graduate courses in microwave circuit design. They include: critical thinking, metacognition, writing, reading and teamwork. Details of implementation and possible transfer to similar courses are discussed. In particular, we describe educational use of systematic literature reviews in graduate engineering education as a tool to teach all of these skills.