Gauging student interest in a design for developing communities courses at the University of Hartford

Abstract

Community service learning projects are an important part of the curriculum in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture at the University of Hartford. To further this service learning experience, an interdisciplinary engineering course has been developed to provide interested students an opportunity to design and implement a project for a developing community. During the second semester of the sophomore year, students are given a choice to work on a contemporary engineering problem. Starting in spring 2007 semester, a design for developing communities' project had been included as one of the projects. In addition to learning about sustainable design, students will have the opportunity to implement their design over the summer where they will learn about "on-location" issues that can not be duplicated in the classroom. The interest in providing students this type of opportunity has grown dramatically in the last several years as indicated by the number of papers being presented at engineering education conferences on this subject and the growth of organizations such as Engineers Without Borders (EWB)1. This paper summarizes how a design for developing communities course was added to the curriculum and the challenges involved in providing the students the opportunity to implement their project on-site without having to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising. Furthermore, the results of a survey assessing students' level of interest for working on this type of project are also discussed. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.