Quote Originally Posted by gugi View Post
Don't you guys have some power to reject his report, or give him a lower grade based on it?
Apparently somebody else is making the hiring decisions at DoD and they should have some concept on what kind of workforce they're creating. One possibility is to hire people with very good technical skills and virtually non existing social/interpersonal skills and then have them being managed by people who can make it work. I personally don't think it's a particularly good model, but only putting it in practice can determine that.

I have some observations from the top tier academia and the emphasis there is on research since that brings in money. A good researcher most certainly has decent communication skills, as they have to convince others about their work, but they are more often than not not the best teachers out there. It works well though, because almost everybody can teach the basics adequately, and then when it comes to the state of the art stuff, it's more of a training by example and by definition they're the best at it.
Not me, I was only consulted by his supervisor whom we have mutual respect for each other. Our departments collaborate with each other. I had nothing to do with the young man's hiring. I know my colleague had the young man rewrite that essay based on my comments and input. By the way, I have a notorious reputation for being a ruthless proof reader, just ask my son!! I told my colleague that if the young man comes back next summer to work with us, perhaps it would be a good exercise to task him to write weekly reports as a way to help the intern's writing skills. Good writing is not hard to do, the secret to good writing is simplicity. Do I make mistakes with my writing? Yes, I try very hard to catch them and some of them get by me. I just found some mistakes in my opening commentary. I do take the time to proof, but some mistakes still get by me.