Linc - Information for Students

Prospective students FAQ

How is LINC different from my other courses?
Why should I register for this course?
What will I learn?
How can I register for this course?
Will this course count toward any of my graduation requirements? How is the course organized?
What are the specific learning objectives of this course?
What's being done in current LINC sections?
How do I know what a specific project is about?

How is LINC different from my other courses?

LINC is different from your other courses in the following ways:

You will join a team of students who will work together on an important large-scale project.
Your team will be interdisciplinary and horizontally integrated across colleges, and may include students from the colleges of LAS, Engineering, Commerce, ACES, and others as appropriate.
Your team will be vertically integrated with respect to academic class, first-year through senior.
The project you tackle will be significant, ambitious, and long-term spanning several semesters.
Your project will be a partnership between the University of Illinois and the community (broadly defined). You and your partner organization will devise solutions to community-defined problems.
Your project team will be highly mentored with each team having a TA and, in addition, possibly an advisor who is either a faculty member or an experienced supervisor from an industry relevant to your project.

Why should I register for this course?

Would you like to develop your project management skills?

Do you like the idea of providing valuable service to people who need your skills and ideas and learning at the same time?

Would you like to investigate a career in a particular area for which this course has a project?

Would you like to apply your knowledge to a real-world problem?

Do you want to get off campus, connect with the larger C-U community, and impact others in a meaningful way?

Would you like to develop your team building skills and work together with students from other disciplines for a common purpose on projects that matter?

Do you just want a real-world experience to enhance your resume and provide engaging stories to share with recruiters?

Then you should consider registering for LINC.

What will I learn?

This is a project-based course which facilitates learning by doing. You will be presented with an open-ended problem and challenged to work together with teammates from other disciplines to find and implement a solution. To solve your project's problem, you will need to learn new information, analyze data and alternatives, synthesize and create solutions, and evaluate alternatives. You will have to consider the social factors present and respond to the client (the Project Partner).

This may not be a tidy experience. Like life, the path your project team takes may be jagged and bumpy. But by working on large, realistic problems, you will experience the complexity of projects that would otherwise often be simplified to fit an academic calendar. Research has shown that in corporate settings, the future success of individuals can been predicted by the complexity and scope of current job activities; those individuals engaged in large, complicated projects (like LINC) were subsequently more successful.

Whether you are a first-year student or a senior, LINC will provide you with an opportunity for a capstone, culminating experience enhancing your ability to synthesize all knowledge you have acquired up to that point in your academic career.

How can I register for this course?

First, you register for LINC under ENG 199, Section AL1 (lecture). You must then select a discussion section. Each discussion section correlates to one of seven specific project partners. The 3-number/letter acronym for each specific discussion section helps describe the project partner. Identify the project you are interested in working on and register for the discussion section which corresponds to that section.

The following are the prospective project partners and their corresponding discussion sections for Fall, 2005:

Project Partner Discussion Section

Cunningham Childrens Home AD1 (link to HFH project)

Habitat for Humanity AD3 (link to HFH project)

Home Hi Middle School AD5 (sponsored by Special Programs) (link to HH project)

North South University in Bangladesh AD6 (link to NSU)

Swann School AD9 (link to SWS project)

TIMES Center ADA (link to TC project)

Unity East Grade School ADB (link to UES project)

For more information (such as the each section's meeting time and place), please examine the Online Timetable, (http://www.uiuc.edu/timetable).

The LINC course is offered for three (3) hours credit per semester and may be registered for for multiple semesters.

Will this course count toward any of my graduation requirements?

If you are a student the College of Engineering, this course will count towards "Other SS/H". Otherwise please expect this to be a course which would count toward a free elective.

How are projects selected?

LINC addresses problems with the following characteristics:

Opportunities for Learning: LINC is not merely a course which gives academic credit for good works and volunteering. As such, projects selected must provide significant learning possibilities.
Significance: Not all projects can be undertaken, so partners whose projects provide the combined greatest benefit to the community and most significant educational experiences for you will be selected.
Level of Difficulty: Projects must be challenging, and within the capabilities of undergraduates students.
Expected Duration: Projects that will span several semesters offer the greatest opportunity to provide extensive educational experiences and to address problems of potentially high impact. LINC projects will be a mix of short-term (one semester to one year) and long-term (multi-year) projects; the short-term projects build confidence and help establish the relationship between the students and the project partner.
Project Partner Commitment: A crucial element of the program is the commitment of individuals in the partner organizations to work with you to identify projects, specify the requirements, and provide you ongoing critical feedback. Preference is given to those partner organizations willing to commit to such guidance.

What projects can I select from?

Browse the Projects page to get an idea of the possible projects in each section that your team will choose from.

How is the course organized?

You will attend a weekly one-hour lecture on the following major topics organized by the following instructional units:

Unit A: Teamwork
Unit B: Project Management
Unit C: Project Context
Unit D: Learning from Projects

A majority of the lectures are by guest experts and cover a range of topics from team dynamics, leadership, and project management to community service, ethics, diversity, and collaborative writing.

You will also attend a weekly one-hour meeting your team. During this time you and your team members will take care of administrative matters, do project planning and tracking, and work on your respective project. Your team may schedule additional meetings as necessary.

What are the specific learning objectives of this course?

The specific course objectives for this course are:

analyze and solve a complex problem;
understand and apply the principles of team work and group problem solving (Unit A);
understand and apply project management techniques (Unit B);
understand and be able to explain the social context of your project and how your project partner addresses those problems (Unit C);
understand and be able to explain how you learn, particularly in the context of a problem-based team project performed for a client (Unit D);
develop and apply problem solving techniques, including questioning, brainstorming, analyzing alternatives, selecting components, presenting your work, etc; and
evaluate solutions developed by you and by others.

What's being done in current LINC sections?

Currently, Spring 2005, there are 7 sections working on 13 different projects. Some of the current students' work can be seen here.