Engineers have specific communication needs and the following courses are designed to meet them.
ENGI 400/500: Presentation Skills for Engineers
Instructor: Tracy Volz
This course prepares engineering students to present complex concepts and data more clearly and confidently to various audiences. Through practice and feedback, students will become skilled at giving professional technical presentations that influence decisions and communicate value.
ENGI 501: Workplace Communication
Instructor: Anne-Marie Womack and Amirpooya Dardashti
Develop written and oral communication skills for engineering careers through hands-on practice with resumes, presentations, interviews, reports, and AI prompts—engaging international and domestic students with interactive activities and real-time feedback.
ENGI 600: Graduate Communication Seminar
Instructor: Kamisha Escoto
This 7-week course helps graduate students build a consistent and effective writing practice. Through structured writing time and guided activities (e.g., freewriting, analyzing model papers), students will learn strategies to generate ideas, work through early-stage writing, and communicate their research clearly. Students will apply these strategies to their own writing projects at any stage of development.
Comp 608: Workplace Communication for Comp Science Professionals
Instructors: Glavan, Mary and Joyner, Mack
This course prepares students in the Master of Computer Science program to communicate effectively and ethically in professional environments. Students will learn to navigate diverse communication situations by understanding various workplace contexts, audiences, and roles and adapting their written, oral, and visual communication to these situations. Students will apply communication principles and strategies to explain technical ideas clearly, manage intercultural team dynamics constructively, and communicate effectively across industry-standard formats, genres, and tools.
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Whether you're looking to polish a presentation or publish your research in a high-impact journal, Activate provides the engineering-specific communication support you need. By working with a trained engineering coach, you can vastly improve how you communicate all that you have learned and accomplished during your time at Rice. Activate’s coaching program is generously supported by the Linda P. Driskill endowed fund.
"I’d like to work with a coach."
Need to design a poster that attracts a crowd? Write a cover letter that lands an interview? Write a paper that gets cited?
Rice Events calendarStudents learn advanced strategies for crafting a persuasive job letter. We examine real examples from Rice students who were successful in their job search.
Students learn how to craft emails that clearly communicate their intended message, initiate email communication for networking, and frame requests that lead to desired results.
Students learn how to make connections, construct a personal pitch, and leverage networks to solve problems and achieve their goals.
Students learn how to develop a communication strategy, organize an argument, project confidence, and present data.
Students learn to give direct, succinct answers to questions and manage difficult situations.
Work with a trained engineering coach to more effectively communicate your ideas and connect with your audience. Our team of coaches will work with you one-on-one to practice an upcoming presentation, prepare a poster, or improve a paper. Schedule a Coaching Session.
