Communication Skills are Key for STEM Careers

Here, Dr. Simon Milligan, lecturer of "Scientific Writing and Presentations" and founder of Academic Language Services GmbH, speaks with Mirko Kaiser, researcher at ETH Zurich, about why communication skills are crucial for STEM researchers.

So, are writing and presentation skills actually important in science and engineering? Mirko Kaiser, a researcher at the ETH in Zurich, certainly thinks so: “In short, very important,” he confirms. “I see very often that a good MSc thesis presentation increases the chance to get a PhD position.”

Writing is also central to career success: “Scientific writing is important for journal manuscripts . . . editors usually have limited time to study your manuscript.” The same applies to grant applications: “A summary must provide the most important aspects of your work and gain the interest of the reader, usually in less than 250 words.”

But what about careers outside research? Mirko worked in industry before returning to the ETH for his doctorate: “We need to be able to explain in a straightforward yet convincing way why we chose our approaches, so that partners both understand our work and follow our advice.”

For MSc students, Mirko has some tips about writing theses: “Take your time with the structure; if you need to change the structure after you have written most of your work, it will take a lot of effort. Present your coarse structure to someone from your field and to someone outside of your field. If they can both follow your story, then you certainly have a good structure and flow.”

You can find some of Mirko's work here: 
Method for Parametric Evaluation of 3-D Surface Imaging Systems for Applications With Moving Objects
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