Another university also said that they have an option on consulting but students do not choose to do it. Separately we have heard this comment from many universities. One university said it was trying to incorporate transferable skills, including group presentations, into courses. There is resistance to this by the students even though this was done as a possible improvement on a previous 'Personal Skills' course. Another commented that a good course on learning helps you identify your own weaknesses.
Students can easily pick up bad habits.
Some thought it best to build interpersonal skills into beginning courses and continue throughout. Students from other disciplines could be used to check the ability to communicate. One example of integration was from a university which had all students on the Applied Statistics degree take a unit in the first year designed to enhance their communication skills and their knowledge of business, set as far as possible in the context of the sort of environment they are likely to find during their placement. The statistics units also include oral presentations. There were some suggestions that it would be useful for statistics students to be involved in problems that arose in other disciplines.