What is student professional awareness?

Most people agree that engineers must be technically proficient, professionally astute, and clearly aware of their social responsibility.  However, in business today, engineers must be able to deal with all the nontechnical aspects of their career.

Students graduate knowing how to design circuits and write code.  But, ask them to plan a meeting, organize a presentation, or develop an annual budget and, most likely, they’ll be overcome with apprehension.  Why?  Because engineering schools are reluctant to add these nontechnical skills to an already full curriculum.  In reality, these nontechnical competencies are just as critical to engineers’ futures as their technical training.

A professional topic is any nontechnical skill which enhances the career skills of the engineer.