Teaching Emotional Intelligence to Computer Science students

In this paper we present an experiment in which a competition is used in an attempt to motivate Emotional Intelligence in Computer Science students studying the subject of Databases. Computing professionals are, on an ever-increasing basis, being requested to acquire emotional skills in addition to, or even before, acquiring technical knowledge. The skills needed to work in a team or to speak in public, to attain leadership capacities or to adapt to change are important requirements in perhaps any job. However, these types of skills, which are characteristic of what is denominated as Emotional Intelligence, become indispensable in the profile of a Computer Engineer. This type of professional will have to work in a group, have to confront the project management, give talks and, which may be the most difficult, keep up to date with a technology whose new advancements will be obsolete in scarcely five years. Nevertheless, and in spite of the importance of this type of skills, Emotional Intelligence continues to be a subject which is pending in Computer Science students' curricula.