Undergraduate education in the professional disciplines prioritizes acquisition of discipline-specific knowledge and skills. However, it is worth considering a more holistic approach to shape students into future professionals capable of embracing a keen sense of service to society alongside their professional identity. One way of achieving this is by providing them with opportunities to make meaningful contributions to society directly through their disciplinary education, while enabling them to see the benefits and experience the satisfaction of their involvement. This paper describes the transformative learning experiences of engineering undergraduates in Malaysia who were involved in a service-learning module employing a non-traditional approach. This approach uses their engineering knowledge and skills to directly engage with teenagers from underprivileged communities such as children's homes, orphanages, refugee schools and low-income housing projects. In the beginning many undertook this compulsory module with some reluctance, resigning themselves to it. However, upon completion their views changed, and it was apparent that a profound learning experience had occurred. This paper narrates this experience and uses survey responses and students’ reflective journals to convey the outcomes.

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