Service learning first year design retention results

The College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) has operated a first-year engineering design course for six years now. The course is required in some curricula in the college, recommended in others, and accepted for credit by all departments. The course stresses teamwork and design, culminating in a 7-9 week team design project. The projects vary with instructor, and usually each of the 4-5 teams per class works on a different project. This paper first discusses the service learning sections of the course. It then discusses the results of statistical analysis regarding retention and major selection between students who took the first year design course compared with those who did not. The authors now have six years of experience with the course so they present data from entry to graduation for the students who entered in the first two years. In addition, they have included preliminary statistics to study the effect of using service learning projects as a part of the first year design experience