Graduate EPICS Program

Program description:

The Graduate Engineering Projects in Community Service program is a design-based service-learning program that will bring together multidisciplinary teams to work with community partners to solve some of the toughest challenges that they face. The EPICS program works on projects in the areas of sustainability, health, education, and community development utilizing the human centered design approach to engage with stakeholders to design for the community’s need.

How does the Graduate program differ from the Undergraduate offerings?

The course will begin with a short Human Centered Design Boot Camp. Student leadership and project ownership are critical differentiators between this program and the undergraduate version.  Students will be expected to have more agency over the relationship building aspects of their projects. In addition, the level of technical and innovative solutions will be higher.

What types of projects will there be?

Have a great idea for a community engineering project? The graduate EPICS program will give you an opportunity to develop your idea further by coaching you through the human centered design process and giving you access to professional mentors to bring your ideas to life. Students will have the opportunity in this course to develop their own projects, establish relationships with critical stakeholders for that project, and lead the change that they want to make.

Learning outcomes:

  • Multidisciplinary Design: Learn how to be better designers, gain design knowledge and skills; learn how to apply disciplinary knowledge to real and possibly ill-defined problems; learn how to identify and acquire new knowledge; learn to collaborate with people from other disciplines and develop an appreciation for cross-disciplinary contributions in design.

  • Service learning: Provide significant service to the community while learning; gain an understanding of the role that engineering (and their discipline) can play in society and the broader issues related to the needs we are addressing.

  • Professional Preparation: Develop the broad set of skills needed to be successful in the changing global workplace and world as a working professional.  This includes leadership, communication, innovative design, navigating partnerships, working with community partners to deliver specific design needs.

  • Social Innovation: Understand the difference between an entrepreneurial venture operating as a business trying to make a profit and the opportunity to cure social problems with creative and innovative approaches to problem solving. Students will be given roles as change agents, in order to bring innovation and fresh thinking to what are often long-term problems.

Eligibility:

In order to be eligible for the Graduate Engineering Projects in Community Service program, applicants must be post-baccalaureate degree-seeking graduate students in good academic standing. Students in Ira A Fulton Schools of Engineering programs will have priority but other programs are encouraged to enroll as well.

Register for FSE 598: EPICS in Action today!

Questions? Contact Jared Schoepf, EPICS Director at [email protected]

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