NEED AND ANALYSIS OF SOFT SKILLS FOR STUDENTS OF THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Abstract

The preliminary research about soft skills of graduated students from vocational high school that
took mechanical as their major were not optimal at work place. It could be proven and interaction that were done
by graduated students from mechanical engineering at work. The objective of this research was to identify
specific soft skills that are importan to be taught to mechanical engineering students of vocational high schools.
Dacum Approach was used in this research.The sample of this research was 50 industry employees who have
specification in mechanical engineering, vocational high school teachers who teach mechanical engineering and
experts in soft skill field. A questionnaire was used to identify soft skills needed, with the options are very
important, important, not important, and very not important. Based on the analysis of data obtained can be
concluded that 67% of the sample said that soft skills are very important, 31% are important and 2 % are not
important. The result of this research could be used as an important information to develop vocational high
school curriculum and to develop a soft skills learning model for mechanical engineering students at vocational
high schools.