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Undergraduate student experience during the first year has been linked to perceived success throughout college. Subsequently, different factors influencing success in the first-year experience have been studied, including the importance of self-efficacy and optimism, the role of social support, and the construction of student communities, to name a few (Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001; Wilcox, Winn, & Fyvie‐Gauld, 2005; Tinto, & Goodsell, 1994). This project seeks to extend research regarding the first-year experience by focusing on course integration. The overall purpose of this research project involves documenting an integrated First-Year Experience among three introductory freshman courses—Introductory Composition, Fundamentals of Speech Communication, and Design Thinking and Technology. Specifically, our research seeks to explore what difference the integration makes for students and instructors, with a focus on if and how the formal integration of these courses will improve students’ learning, academic engagement, and sense of community. This First-Year Experience is the first large-scale integration of courses at a large, public research university; specifically, this curricular program development has been implemented for over 500 first-year students. In this new arrangement, there are 40 students in each introductory design course. Of these, 20 are enrolled together in an introductory Communication course, and 20 in an introductory English course. Large-scale integration on this level is an intervention in the traditional university model, which often times includes a heavy, discipline-based segmentation of coursework. This …