2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering and computing graduates are expected to enter the workforce with strong technical skills alongside the ability to communicate effectively, collaborate in teams, and articulate their strengths and limitations in professional contexts. Yet many students struggle to describe their capabilities in ways that move beyond generic or socially safe language, particularly in interviews and industry-facing team environments. This paper presents a concise strengths-based pedagogical intervention embedded within an industry-sponsored Computer Science and Computer Engineering capstone course designed to support professional self-articulation and adaptive teamwork communication. The intervention reframes the CliftonStrengths framework as a professional communication tool rather than a personality assessment and is implemented through two structured assignments: Name It, Claim It, Aim It and Managing Your Team. Using qualitative thematic analysis of 136 student-authored artifacts from a bounded single-semester cohort (73 students enrolled; 67 and 69 submissions across the two assignments), this study examines how students translate strengths awareness into industry-aligned professional behaviors. Findings indicate consistent thematic patterns across artifacts: students articulated strengths and contextual limitations using professional language; translated strengths insight into adaptive collaboration strategies; established explicit communication norms and feedback preferences; and connected strengths reflection to interview preparation and career positioning. These patterns emerged within a limited instructional structure, suggesting that bounded strengths-based reflection can function as a practical scaffold for professional communication within technically intensive capstone courses. This work contributes a scalable model for integrating career-relevant articulation and teamwork development into industry-facing capstone experiences and offers implications for strengthening college–industry partnerships through structured professional reflection.