Students can participate in more than one Ethos immersion. In fact, we have students who have immersed with Dayton or domestic partners for two or more semesters. Students can also participate in an international immersion, a domestic, and a Dayton immersion.

During a full-time Ethos immersion, students are expected to fully engage with their partner, and therefore taking classes is not allowed. However, there are special circumstances that may arise and some exceptions can be made. 

The Ethos Center offers a small number of part-time immersion opportunities in which students can engage with our Dayton community partners while taking classes. 

If you are interested in a part-time immersion, please email is at Ethos@udayton.edu. 

The Ethos program was founded in 2001 by a group of engineering students who wanted to apply the skills they learned in the classroom to real-world humanitarian problems. 

The countries Ethos sends students to depends largely on our partner contacts. The Ethos Center seeks to have long-term partnerships that provide for sustainable development work in the locations where we send students. At this point, students have traveled to 20 different countries on four different continents. 

Ethos Club is a way to get involved locally with service-learning and project opportunities in the Dayton area. Students can also participate in domestic weekend breakouts or 10-day international breakouts, which provide an introduction to service-learning-based engineering. Finally, the 10-week international and domestic immersions are long-term project opportunities, where students work with one of our partners on appropriate technologies. Only sophomores, juniors and seniors can participate in the 10-week immersion opportunities. Students are also able to participate in a local immersion in Dayton or an Ethos graduate immersion. More information on each of these opportunities can be found on our Get Involved webpage. 

No, the Ethos program accepts participants from all majors, but the student must be at least in their second year to be accepted.

The Ethos program offers several domestic and local immersion and breakout opportunities for students to participate in projects within the Dayton area and elsewhere in the United States. Students can also participate in Ethos Club, which focuses on addressing energy, environmental and social issues in the Dayton area. 

Students do not get to pick the location they travel to. However, students are placed in countries based on their major, the nature of the project and languages they can speak.

This varies based on the project and the location. Students have been placed in cities with all the desired amenities but could also live in a rural location without running water or electricity.