Work in Progress - The Role of Non-Engineers in an International Engineering Service Learning Project

In May of 2004 and again in May of 2005, groups of students from the Valparaiso University chapter of Engineers Without Borders undertook a trip to the village of Nakor in northern Kenya to construct a water supply and irrigation system they had designed. Each of the groups that traveled to Kenya included both engineering majors and non-engineering majors. The groups learned a great many lessons, perhaps the most pleasant of which was the value of the presence of the non-engineering majors on the trip. While the engineering students and professor tended to focus solely on the engineering aspects of the project, the non-engineering students tended to focus on the social impacts of the project. The insight of the non-engineers was very useful in helping the engineering majors to recognize many of the sociological impacts of their work.