Coordinators: Profa. Dra. Adriana M. Tonini (CEFET-MG/ UFOP)
Summary: The contemporary world, known as the “knowledge era”, presents a competitive scenario between organizations and, consequently, the labor market is demanding workers increasingly efficient, multifunctional, and competent. Technological advances and globalization affected the market characteristics, changing even the demand for professionals. Added to this are the changes in the form of production and new social requirements that, by reinforcing the need for a new profile of the engineering professional make the need for changing a recurring subject in academia, in Brazil, and abroad. In the 1990s, the debate on the engineer’s profile to the new millennium was intensified and the term “competence” passed to occupy a prominent place in the study of the contemporary engineer’s profile, so that, in Europe and the US, major studies were initiated to define what are the skills required from the engineer and talk about the need to reform the educational system. The university then commits with society and students, to provide an education that fosters conditions for professionals to join and remain in the labor market, and in this context, skills must be developed during university education, consistent with those needed for their professional performance. It is noteworthy that this does not mean that the focus of education is exclusively meeting the demands of the labor market, reaffirming the importance of a generalist, humanistic and reflective formation. In this scenario, it becomes important to identify and analyze the skills that the modern engineer must develop as professionals such as engineers are directly involved in work processes, product manufacture, and provision of services, in various economic sectors of the globalized world.