A Recruiting And Retention Strategy Through A Project Based Experiential Learning Course

An experiential learning course centered on an intellectually inquisitive project has been designed for the benefit of any freshman student who wants to explore engineering as a career field, and also to provide the prospective majors with a head start for the beginning engineering/technology courses and demonstrate the relevance of engineering work to enhance their motivation and retention. The course has a heavy emphasis on laboratory activities with an equally strong focus on ‘just-in-time’ theory relating to the concepts central to accomplishing the project goal. The prerequisite for the course has been kept at a minimum to make the course accessible to diverse university majors including students from education. National Science Foundation is supporting a new focus of the course to include education majors and pre-college teachers. A preliminary study of the effect of the course on recruiting and retention is included.