A Comparative Study of Soft Skills Amongst the Washington Accord Engineering Degree Graduates with Industry Expectations

Graduate engineers in the 21^st century are expected to be well rounded engineers after graduating with a Washington accord degree. Academics and industry concur that engineers need to have a set of soft skills in the 21^st century. Competence in soft skills may equally have a great influence over an engineer's general career achievement as hard skills competences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the magnitude to which the gap between Washington accord engineering degrees offer and industry expectations. The study found that graduate engineers with a Washington accord (WA) degree are taught the following soft skills; communication skills, teamwork, entrepreneurial skills, problem solving skills, decision making, ethic, self management skills, life long learning, and creativity/innovation. In contrast, industry found that graduate engineers are competent in the following soft skills; interpersonal skills, flexibility, teamwork, decision making skills, problem solving skills, and self management skills. Moreover, the result revealed that graduate engineers are taught the following soft skills; communication skills, ethics, and entrepreneurial skills but were not inline with industry expectations. The findings suggest that by revising the engineering curricula, it may be able to produce engineering graduates who are more prepared to meet industry expectations.