• Question: Do you use English that much in your work as our class doesn't seem to use it much in graphics?

    Asked by Caitlin J. to Matthew, Neil, Paula, Pete, Philippa on 12 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Matthew Gall

      Matthew Gall answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hey Caitlin!

      Great question! English is a very important skill (whatever you might believe!). Why? Well, when you work, you’re always going to be asked to produce reports and documentation about jobs you have been doing, and having the skills of communication will make it easier!

      English as well as Maths are the universal languages of Engineering 🙂

    • Photo: Pete Symons

      Pete Symons answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hi Caitlin,

      I use English every single day because I have to write technical reports which need to be easy to read and understand so people can make important decisions about safety risk based on them. I would have thought that most engineering profession would involve some degree of report writing.

    • Photo: Philippa Jefferis

      Philippa Jefferis answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      Absolutely! I need to communicate with lots of different people both verbally and through reports and drawings. So English, and other languages if you wish to work in another country, are essential to getting your design understood by other people.

    • Photo: Neil Taylor

      Neil Taylor answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      Hi Caitlin J.!

      I think this is a great question, because often people talk about English as if it is unrelated to Science subjects because it requires a different set of skills. However, the reality is that when you are in a professional environment you need to use both sets of skills to be an effective engineer.

      While in class you will be creating certain graphics and judged on their technical merit, in the workplace you will typically have to then communicate a piece of work or idea to your colleagues and/or people from other companies. This will usually involve creating easily readable graphs, writing reports, creating and delivering presentations, and talking things over in person to name a few…. and a lot of these actions are based on skills that you learn in English!

      As well as communicating your idea to other people, you also need to have skills in interpreting the ideas and information of others. This means that reading graphs/reports and listening to presentations/meetings (and being able to work out what their message is!) becomes very important too!

      At the end of the day, no matter how great your idea is, you’ve got to find a way to communicate that to other people – and English is the vehicle to use to achieve this.

      Hope this helps!

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