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Chapter 14
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0951-8.ch014
Jacek Uziak
University of Botswana, Botswana
M. Tunde Oladiran
University of Botswana, Botswana
Venkata Parasuram Kommula
University of Botswana, Botswana
Integrating General
Education Courses into
Engineering Curriculum:
Students’ Perspective
ABSTRACT
General Education Courses (GEC) are natural sources of “soft” skills in engineering curricula. Such
skills are becoming increasingly important if the graduates are to operate successfully and be fully
integrated in their workplaces. The importance of “soft” skills is fully recognized by engineering ac-
creditation boards. The chapter reports on the engineering students’ reactions to the introduction of
GEC at the University of Botswana (UB). The position of engineering students’ on the issue of GEC is
not very clear. The questionnaire administered to fnal year students in all engineering programmes at
UB gave a mixed response. On average, there were 25% neutral answers to the questions in the survey.
The fact that on average one quarter of all graduating engineers did not have an opinion about GEC
and their implementation was very disappointing and showed the general problem of students not be-
ing interested in that area of their study. The survey showed that students were not fully convinced that
GEC were either important or relevant to their future career. The fundamental question on whether
GEC were a necessary part of engineering programme brought almost an equal split between positive,
negative, and neutral answers, with a slight advantage of positive answers (37%) over negative ones
(33%). The students were equally split (36% positive and negative answers) on the question of whether