Nurturing Engineering Enthusiasm and Soft Skills in High School Students

In this paper, we present a study of an educational program to nurture engineering enthusiasm among high school students. In this program, we designed a one-year project-based learning program focusing on microcontroller applications, where selected high school students (15 to 16 years old) were guided by mentors consisting of engineering undergraduate students. The participants of this study were trained with microcontroller know-how and on the development of specific soft skills through hands-on modules. The objective was to foster their enthusiasm in engineering and cultivate several soft skills, such as communication, teamwork and life-long learning, which are essential for students to become good engineers. The outcomes of this program demonstrate that the high school students have shown positive enthusiasm towards engineering and have improved their soft skills.