Art and Design Commons^™

Soft Skills With Teeth: Creating Authentic Learning Environments With Charismatic Mega-Projects, J .E. Johnson, Karen Maness

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

In every industry, effective teams depend upon a collection of non-technical competencies often described as soft skills: leadership, verbal and written communication, collaboration, analytical thinking, creativity, decision-making, problem-solving, and flexibility. Though the importance of soft skills is widely acknowledged, soft skills curricula are either non-existent or underdeveloped in most universities. This soft skills training gap leaves students under- prepared and often over-confident as they enter the workforce. In response to this gap in our department at The University of Texas at Austin, we defined and implemented an emergent, project-based pedagogical framework to recruit an interdisciplinary roster of students and deliver …