Some Models and Methods to Nurture General Management Skills in Engineering Students Living in Large Residential Communities

To be successful in one’s profession, an engineer operating in the contemporary globalized world needs to be adequately equipped with suitable management skills. They include talent to plan, implement and manage engineering projects in diverse and pluralistic teams, ability to communicate at different levels, perseverance in the face of failures and crisis, creativeness to improvise innovative solutions, maintenance of physical and mental health, ability to invent and implement eco-friendly engineering solutions, and smartness to work within stipulated time-frames, etc. Large residential student communities prepare suitable context for engineering students to nurture their general management skills, if carefully planned. In the current paper, we present some innovative models and appropriate methods to convert large residential student communities into an arena where students can train themselves in general management skills. It also presents some results of two years of implementation of such methods in a men’s hostel, which accommodates youngsters between 17–19 years of age in their first year of undergraduate engineering study.