Before my first day of classes, I thought that my first year at the University of Illinois would revolve solely around mathematics and science. However, my ENG 198 class introduced ideas called “The Missing Basics” which are skills that every engineer should have but many lack.
I suppose it's understandable why many of these students would not have these “missing basics” - As engineering students, we all expect to take part in labs, lectures, and discussions about science and technology, not learning about asking better questions or making lists. We enter college knowing that most of our curriculum will be science-related. For instance, electrical engineers are required to take a 4 hour composition course called RHET 105. This is the only required class that is related to communicating ideas to others. This is nothing compared to the 31 hours of basic math and science courses that EE majors must take. And though the EE courses must be heavily math and science oriented for us to get a good understanding of the field we will be working in, it is heavily unbalanced
it terms of missing basics and science classes.
And these missing basics are so useful – they can be applied immediately once acquired. Learning how to ask better questions could help me gain important advice from other EE majors on how to be a better student. Gaining better communication skills may help me land an internship or help me be more successful in collaborating with other students. And breaking larger problems into smaller ones may (hopefully!) help me manage my time better with studying and help me get more than 4 hours of sleep.
To improve my questions, I plan to talk with my ECE mentor at least once a week and ask him about ways that I can make the most out of my education. To improve my communication skills (besides the obvious way of talking to others), I intend to write everyday. And I'm going to practice decomposing problems by laying my homework over the course of a week rather than a night (it would be good to do this as soon as possible).
I hope to see improvements in all of these missing basics by the end of September
