Next E190 Placement Exam
TBA
All exam results for the October 7 exam have
been sent. If you haven't received yours, check your junk e-mail box.
If it's not there, contact tech_comm AT berkeley DOT edu
Program Updates
An additional section of 190E will be added to the schedule. It will
most likely be Tu/Th from 3:30-5:00. Check the course schedule October 23, 2009 for an update.
There are rumors around that we will not be offering classes in Fall 2010. The College of Engineering has
not
eliminated our program, and you should continue to take your required
courses until otherwise notified directly by your own department.
We are here to serve the broad interests of the campus
engineering community and those programs that the College
of Engineering co-sponsors through its Interdisciplinary
Program. If you are an engineering major in EECS, ME, Chemical Engineering, or
IEOR at Berkeley, you will find at this Web site information
essential to completing required coursework in technical
communication—Engineering 190 and Engineering 140.
The Technical Communication Program at Berkeley is offered
through the College of Engineering, Technology & Leadership Studies (formerly called Interdisciplinary Studies), located in the Stephen D. Bechtel Engineering Center.
Program Overview
At the heart of the Technical Communication Program is
Engineering 190, which serves more than 600 engineering
students and others each year either because the course is a
departmental requirement or because it fulfills a technical
elective. Although the E190 staff offers diverse approaches to
learning technical communication, the course overall teaches
students to present technical and non-technical material
effectively to a variety of audiences, ranging from the educated
non-specialist to the more technically literate.
After a brief review of grammar, the course focuses on
the structure and organization of documents common in the
engineering industry as students learn to develop rhetorical
strategies for producing competent reports, proposals, formal
descriptions, and instructions. Students in E190 also gain
in-depth experience with oral presentations. Through group
and individual work, students can work with traditional and
electronic tools commonly used in professional settings.
All students who plan to enroll in E190 are required to take
a language placement test designed to gauge their language
proficiency.
The Technical Communication Program also includes Engineering 140, designed for non-native speakers of English who are not fully proficient in the language. In Engineering 140 students
gain a background in the fundamentals of written and oral
English. They also learn to identify and correct expository
problems, gain introductory experience in oral presentations,
and acquire the English language skills they need to prepare
them for E190.
See our
course offerings for other courses offered, including: engineering ethics, graduate seminar in engineering pedagogy, technology and society, and professional communication in Technology & Leadership Studies, under the aegis of Technical Communication.
