W4-3/3 The Significance of Soft Skills (7/19)


On Thursday I attended a meeting between two different faculties. I had attended meetings of faculties in the past but never one between two different faculties at two different locations so this was an interesting experience. Interfaculty meetings are quite a bit different considering it is a meeting between “teams” instead of a meeting between two “teams”. The meeting was more formal and was centered on compromise between the two teams (which is quite a bit different than compromise between “team mates”). It was a whole new experience of office culture for me.

Meetings and presentations are where soft skills (speaking, presenting, etc.) really come into play. This is why soft skills have such utility in the office environment. Soft skills allow you to understand and communicate things with fellow employees/clients. I think this also a case in which liberal arts colleges hold an edge over universities/vocational schools. I personally feel like liberal arts colleges require more soft skill expertise than other colleges. Writing and communicating on a wide variety of topics is emphasized at liberal arts colleges and thus I think a greater potential for soft skills can be met. I think that is a commonly overlooked advantage with liberal arts colleges. In general, I feel like soft skills are not appreciated as much as they should be. Soft skills allow you to apply your skills (whatever they may be) to their greatest potential and are extremely important in leadership roles. I am definitely going to continue improving my soft skills as well as my technical skills. While we emphasize pair programming and teamwork in Berea’s CSC department, I think we could highly benefit from more soft skill development within our major perhaps more presentations and explanatory assignments could accommodate this well.

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