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NE Alum’s Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Curriculum Boosts Engineering Vols’ Success

Soft Skills Make a Firm Foundation

In late 2023, Nikki Maginn (NE/BS ’13) stood in front of nearly 200 undergraduate students from the University of Tennessee’s Tickle College of Engineering (TCE). They spanned every department and scale of engineering, from nuclear physics to industrial systems analysis.

They were united by an engineering puzzle that Maginn—the former director of global program management at an industrial supply chain and engineering research company—was here to help them tackle: themselves.

“Everyone’s brain works uniquely, but there are some patterns,” she said. “As engineers, we’re typically logic-focused; we aim our energy at problem solving; we value structure and efficiency. And it’s been drilled into us that emotions have no place in our work.”

Maginn explained that while individuality and impartiality are highly valued in standard engineering education, that can create feelings of isolation and make it harder to adjust to the more collaborative workforce. Students can better prepare themselves, and improve their mental health, by developing a few key skills which they would explore during the three-seminar series.

Nikki Maginn and students posing for a photo at a UT workshop

It was the kickoff for Inside Out Engineering, a curriculum Maginn had developed with support from Hannah Olberding, the director of TCE’s Jessica M. Morris Women in Engineering Program (WiE), to help students improve their introspection, collaboration, leadership, and other soft skills, jointly referred to as emotional intelligence (EQ).

“As an engineer, if you said the words ‘mental health,’ I used to run—knees to chest—in the other direction,” she joked later. “But over 55% of engineering students experience some sort of mental health distress, so when UT asked me to build a program on EQ, I dove in heart first.”

After the success of the pilot program, Inside Out Engineering expanded to nine seminars in the fall of 2024. In addition to a 2025 run, Maginn is planning several related workshops with TCE’s Office of Engineering Professional Practice (EPP).

“The overwhelming feedback was that the students wanted more,” Maginn said. “More content, more activities, and most importantly more time with one another. This program gave them not just a better sense of EQ, but a sense of community.”

Like Flying, Soft Skills Take Practice

Maginn is an analytical thinker raised by analytical thinkers. Her grandmother was an engineer; her grandfather and father, both airline pilots, helped Maginn and her siblings learn to fly planes before they could drive cars. A lot of intricate systems are intuitive for her.

In fact, for Maginn, the hardest part of flight training was communicating with the air control tower.

“Having to talk to strangers when I couldn’t see their faces felt like

Nikki Maginn Headshot

such a huge, insurmountable challenge,” she recalled.

Maginn’s father encouraged her to face her struggle head-on, pushing her to practice by making family appointments and reservations over the phone. Eventually, she found herself enjoying phone conversations.

“Overcoming that fear showed me that what once felt impossible could become second nature with practice,” she said.

As Maginn moved through her nuclear engineering degree and into the workforce, her communication skills set her apart from her peers.

“I’d often take on tasks others avoided, like talking to customers or navigating conflicts, because I had built confidence in handling those interactions,” she said. “My hard-won skills of connecting with people, empathizing, and communicating effectively helped me move into leadership roles.”

Meanwhile, Maginn watched talented engineers who lacked those skills encounter more misunderstandings, struggle with less efficient systems, and receive fewer opportunities for professional development.

An Analytical Approach to Emotion

Maginn started looking for ways to help other engineers build their EQ and feel less isolated. She founded a group where female employees at her firm could connect, hear speakers, and mentor each other, which quickly became a company-wide resource. She also started mentoring young female engineers at UT through WiE.

She found that the best way to convey the value of EQ to other engineers was to approach it analytically, emphasizing the concept’s foundations in psychology and neuroscience research.

“Emotional intelligence is a scientific field of study, so we can approach it with the same rigor we approach our engineering work,” Maginn said. “If you can solve technical problems systematically, you can apply the same approach to interpersonal challenges.”

Many of Maginn’s WiE mentees said her approach and support were instrumental in helping them graduate. Her impact was so overwhelming that in the summer of 2023, WiE’s director at the time, Jalonda Thompson, asked Maginn to expand her EQ mentorship into a curriculum that could benefit more TCE students.

Inside Out Engineering was born.

Broadening Exposure to EQ

To develop her program, Maginn drew on her experience, the neuroscience and psychology literature, and observations from engineers at different stages of their careers.

Nikki Maginn taking a selfie with a classroom of students at the University of Tennessee

“I asked them about the challenges they faced, the skills they wished they had learned earlier, and the traits they believed future generations of engineers would need,” she said. “Ultimately, this curriculum is grounded in science, enriched by personal connection, and shaped by the collective wisdom of a diverse group of people, making it a deeply practical program that I’m proud to bring to others.”

Inside Out Engineering continues to evolve based on student feedback. Maginn recently started including faculty from different departments so students could practice having hard conversations, like setting and maintaining boundaries, with authority figures.

She encourages all interested engineering students to sign up for Inside Out Engineering or her other EQ workshops, even if they feel confident in how their degrees are progressing.

“I believe that when engineers hone their EQ skills, we are an unstoppable force,” she said. “Engineers who know their values, know their voices, and can connect with not just technology, but with the people they’re serving—these are the engineers that create a better future.”

Contact

Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, egall4@utk.edu)