Abstract-This paper describes a case study of an innovative approach to teaching at an engineering school. The postgraduate course Project Work and Communication in Research and Development (R&D) was developed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The main aim of the course was to make the entry of young engineering graduates into the business environment as easy as possible. Currently, engineers are facing more and more interdisciplinarity and project work in their daily assignments. The course was designed to remedy any deficiencies in the multidisciplinary professional skills and knowledge of the graduate-level students, and it covered the topics of innovation management, communication in R&D, project management, and problem solving in teams. An end-of-course survey showed positive feedback from participating students. The empirical data (enrollment ratio of students, session attendance ratio, and average student grade) proves that the course met its goal of honing the professional skills of postgraduate engineering students.Index Terms-Communication, education, electrical engineering education, problem solving, project management, research and development (R&D).

Developing Soft Skills for Engineering: Experience with Student Team ProjectsWhile advanced technologies are entering schools at all levels, we claim that other skills required to deal with them in the complex modern world should not be neglected in the education system. In this article, a promising approach to interdisciplinary postgraduate education is described. The idea of the »Team project« course is to give the students the opportunity to gain experience in an extensive project where various skills are needed, e.g. teamwork, coordinating work, project management, research, problem solving, public presentations, time management, etc. The course is obligatory and held in the first year of the master study program at the School of Engineering and Management of the University of Nova Gorica. The main advantage of the course is to give the students hands-on experience of work on a project that is very close to reality. Students are forced to gain experience in teamwork and to overcome the uncertainties and obstacles that arise in such projects. Since the launch of the course, several improvements have been made with the aim of improving the performance of the course. Nevertheless, the course remains a challenge for both students and teachers.