Essential Non-STEM Skills for Future Engineers: Johns Hopkins and Project Hail Mary Insights

This weekend, I listened to an outstanding panel from Johns Hopkins called Engineering Skills that Matter and then saw Project Hail Mary. The timing was uncanny. While top STEM coursework is expected at selective universities, both the panel and the movie made clear: it’s the non-STEM skills that matter most for engineering admissions.

Interpersonal and “Inner-personal” Skills

Engineering means solving problems. This ranges from something as simple as stopping animals from raiding your trash to the unimaginably complex challenge of capturing an alien-resistant microbe called “taumoeba” to save the sun (yes, that’s Project Hail Mary). Either way, these two skills are essential.

Interpersonal: You need to communicate your ideas and work with others. Grace and Rocky, the protagonists in Project Hail Mary, had to literally learn each other’s language to save their respective worlds.

Inner-personal: A term I picked up from the Johns Hopkins panel: the ability to accept your shortcomings, put your ego aside, and stay open to other perspectives. Be okay with being wrong. That’s how you grow. Once Grace accepted that everything on Erid, Rocky’s planet, worked in reverse of what he assumed, he cracked the code.

Communication in All Forms

Good engineers communicate with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders, and they can write technical specs and sketch ideas so others can see their vision. This is why art and writing classes (not using an LLM!) matter more than students expect.

Collaboration is Critical

• Listen. To yourself and others. Grace and Rocky succeeded because each brought a completely different perspective.
• Know your audience. Engineers collaborate with non-engineers too.
• Sketch it out. Draw what’s in your head so others can build on it with you.

Get Your Hands Dirty

Get into a shop. Learn to weld, work with wood, or 3D print. Work with a carpenter — the way they think is practical in ways that make you a better engineer. What you build matters less than that you build. Clothing, model airplanes, drones, all fair game.

1. Explore many interests and look at everything through an engineering eye.
2. Go deep on one thing and build portfolio pieces.
3. Take advanced math and science.

The panelists specifically called out: sewing, theater tech design, microcontrollers, and construction work. All of it counts.

When I think about my most successful engineering applicants, they were problem solvers by nature: one built an automated Christmas tree watering system, another designed all her school’s stage sets, and another outsmarted deer with a custom garden cover. Each one built things out of genuine love for solving problems.

How to Build These Skills in High School

Start early. The Johns Hopkins panelists had great advice:

• Take music, art, and chess; they train you to think ahead.
• Get comfortable with uncertainty. There’s rarely one right answer.
• Tutor others. Explaining ideas deepens your own understanding.
• Look for ways to make someone’s life easier? Start small and humble. Can you practice engineering in the context of constraints: Timeline, budget, client, shared vision. Find ways to do things in your life right now!!
• Ask yourself: How does this work? Get curious about everyday design.
• Force yourself to come up with 3–4 original ideas before looking for answers. Your brain needs the workout.
• Take a drawing class to learn how to show your ideas to others.
• Keep your integrity. Ask for help and don’t oversell.

Here is a great guide to analyzing a pre-college program. 

Let’s hope we never need to capture an alien-resistant microbe — but the world needs problem solvers. So get your hands dirty.