2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

International experiences are high-impact opportunities for undergraduate engineering students to cultivate the development of entrepreneurial mindsets (EMs) in relation to place. Engagement in hands-on experiences during an engineering design course abroad aligns with the grand challenges themes of security, sustainability, health, and joy of living, linking experiential learning, disciplinary knowledge, multicultural awareness, and EM development. Previous studies suggest that short-term international experiences can be highly motivating, transformative, and effective in fostering students' cultural awareness. A strong connection to place may enhance first-year engineering (FYE) students’ approach to their end-of-year design projects. Each team of four students creates, develops, and tests their assigned design project at their respective international location. This research study explores the impact of international experiences on the development of FYE students’ EM and multiculturalism, grounded in Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory (TLT). We are conducting a qualitative research study at an R1 southeastern public institution, consisting of two cohorts of FYE students participating in in-person international experiences in Ecuador and the Czech Republic during their week-long spring break. Each cohort of students will enroll in the same course led by their home institution’s instructors, differing only in their international travel destination and the final First-Year Engineering Design Day (FEDD) project. This research seeks to bridge transformative learning theory, emphasizing multiculturalism and the three Cs of EM: connectedness, creating value, and curiosity, with first-year international experiences. Concept maps and pre-/post-surveys are used to qualify student responses, assessing changes in multicultural awareness, overall perceptions, and growth in the three Cs. Analysis of this data aids in understanding how students’ EM and multicultural competencies develop during their experience. The key findings of this work include enhanced student perception through engaged learning, growth in students’ EM three Cs, and students’ increased appreciation of multiculturalism through in-person cultural immersion experiences.