One of the significant issues facing engineering over the past several decades has been the recruitment and retention of students, particularly minority and female students. One method that has proven fruitful in attracting these groups is to utilize a service-learning approach to show the applicability of course content and the ways that it can positively affect others. Many programs, such as Engineers Without Borders, target service opportunities for engineers in a developing country and typically attract a higher percentage of female and minority participants than the national averages for engineering. Opportunities such as these are wonderful, but there are vast opportunities available within one's own community as well. At the University of Cincinnati, a course was piloted with a group of honors students based on the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) framework to allow vertically integrated and multidisciplinary student teams to work on projects to aid the residents and staff of a local, inpatient facility catering to individuals with debilitating neurological diseases. The class was open to any student in the university's honors program, and drew students from engineering, art and design, and the sciences. In this paper, a description of the curricular structure and the student projects are presented. In addition, a subset of the students in the course present their own experiences with the course and how their participation has affected their view of engineering and their future careers. These students first reflected on their own unique experiences with the course, specifically focusing on working in a multidisciplinary and vertically-integrated team, the development of teamwork and technical skills, and the impact of the course on their view of engineering. After reflecting, each student analyzed the reflections of the other participating students and the commonalities and differences in the experiences were identified and are presented, with implications for similar courses/programs.
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