Service Learning in Engineering Management

It's not often that college students are able to put their coursework to use in a philanthropic way, but for Engineering Management students, that opportunity was made possible in the form of a 5K run.The purpose of the project was to allow students an opportunity to learn decision making and project planning while at the same time gaining exposure to the benefits of community service.Through this project, students engaged in scheduling, financial evaluation, benefit cost analysis, resource allocation, time/cost tradeoffs, team-building, progress monitoring and risk assessment.Future professional challenges involve real problems faced by real people living in real communities and contain both technical and non-technical elements.Integrated and collaborative educational experiences can help students to meet these challenges successfully.This project gave students an opportunity to overcome obstacles and step out of their comfort zones.Students learned the value of a committed team and gained confidence to lead and take risks, realizing that nothing worthwhile comes easily.Assignments, progress reports, a final report, and peer evaluations were used to assess student learning outcomes in a service-learning framework.The purpose of this article is to present information that will help educators to incorporate this type of service learning project in their curriculum.This article first provides information about service learning and then presents a guide to implementing service learning in an undergraduate Engineering Management class.