Engineering Students Apply Their Skills To Community Service: Efforts In Uganda, Africa

This paper describes the first semester of scholarship recipient participation in the National Science Foundation Scholarship Program at Colorado School of Mines. This four year program uses international community service to recruit and retain students in mathematics, computer science, and engineering. This program provides undergraduate and graduate students with scholarship support throughout their degree program, mentorship from senior engineering students and faculty, and assistance in mathematics, computer science, and engineering career placement after graduation. Each year of the program, the scholarship recipients complete a real world, multidisciplinary humanitarian engineering project, which provides experience in their field of study. Projects for the academic year 2007-2008 are being completed in collaboration with a non-profit organization, Into Your Hands, and are designed to benefit St. Denis Secondary School in Uganda, Africa. This paper describes the design of the NSF Scholarship program, and the activities and outcomes to date, including benefits to the participating scholarship recipients and to the community served.