As engineers contribute to solving the increasingly complex problems facing our society, there is a growing need for the engineers graduating from undergraduate programs to deeply understand the context within which they are solving problems. There is a particular need for engineers who recognize the complexities of global and societal issues and respond to those complex issues with the solutions they develop. The Academic Pathways Study (APS) research element of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) is a multi-institution, mixed-method, longitudinal study which examines engineering students' learning and development. Data were collected from forty students at each of four CAEE institutions for a total of 160 participants using surveys, structured interviews, and ethnographic observations. Students were also asked to perform simple engineering tasks during timed sessions at the conclusion of interviews. This paper describes a subset of the first-year data gathered for the APS--findings from a brief engineering design task and findings from an engineering design question in the spring survey in the first year of the study.