Integrating engineering education and community service: Themes for the future of engineering education

Various benefits of the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) for the future of engineering education are discussed. EPICS is built around the concept of long-term partnerships between student teams and not-for-profit organizations in the community. EPICS create new opportunities to integrate what are often disparate components of the curriculum in order to better prepare the students. EPICS provides a time scale that bridges semesters and years to weave connections between content knowledge and design skills. The EPICS unique curricular structure enables each EPICS team to maintain a long-term relationship with its community partner and to successfully design and deliver products having significant technical complexity.