I agree, as an engineer, that many of us are poor writers, but are you aware of the already brutal cirriculum? Where would you shove in another couple English classes?
Sigh. You make a good point.
When I went through engineering, a Bachelors took about 20% more credit hours than most other Bachelors degrees (e.g., arts, English, political science, or business). On top of that, I took a few general arts and business classes including a “graduate” level business finance class. They were jokes compared to my engineering classes. For most of them, I’d show up the first day, read the book the first two weeks, then show up for the midterms and final — and ace the class. Would not have dreamed of doing that with my engineering classes. (To be fair, I did actually attend a few of the finance classes, but that was mostly because of the blonde who liked to sit next to me and then have me tutor her after class. LOL.)
Then again, my parents taught me proper grammar and writing when I was in grade school. They also taught me math up to trig, basic science, and a love of reading. So maybe this is not a fair comparison.
So again, you make a good point.
I know......get rid of the "Women's studies" classes!
My son, a Computer Science major at one of the UC schools in the early 2000's, had to take such a class. For this, we got the pleasure of paying for a class that would never help his major in the slightest bit.
Women's Studies......Grrrrrrr!