Personal Interpretation

• “I contend that we (engineers) are undervalued because of our widespread inability to explain what we do to the general public (and why it is so important). It is one of the hardest goals to accomplish, to be able to boil down difficult concepts into a short and easily understood presentation or elevator pitch.” Marybeth Miceli, President, Miceli Infrastructure Consulting, USA (2011)

• This quote highlights the importance of communication for engineers when trying to bring across ideas from our profession to others.  I resonate with this quote, especially the part where "to boil down difficult concepts". As engineers, most of our subject matter involves complex theories and terminologies and this usually requires some form of background knowledge to understand. Thus, presenting our findings to people with prior knowledge is a challenging task. This can be as simple as elaborating when asked "What are you currently working on?" in a social context to presenting our ideas to a group of investors. Both require us to be adept in our communication skills to be able to precisely yet concisely bring across our ideas.