Early in 2023, the University of Georgia (UGA), located in Athens, Georgia, United States, and the Universidad de Guadalajara (UG), located in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México conducted a bilingual, international design course via Zoom, called “ACTIVA tu Speaking (AtuS).” The UGA students spoke Spanish while UG students spoke English. The students jointly chose two projects, performed necessary research, and designed prototypes to meet the design needs of their respective communities. This course was not originally conducted as an engineering education research project; thus, this is a retrospective summary. Using a promotional video that the UGA students produced about the course and the course reflection paragraph that each UGA student wrote, we performed a word frequency analysis. Based on the word frequency analysis, we conclude that the students’ identification as engineers increased, students connected their academic engineering to real-world problems, the students developed professional skills necessary for working on international engineering projects, and students developed greater international engineering awareness and confidence in working in a global environment. Courses like the one presented herein offer opportunities for students to collaborate internationally without the financial and time commitment of regular study abroad programs. The authors aim to continue the research on understanding the impact that this type of course can have as an intermediate alternative to immersive programs.
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