Welcome: Experiential Education at WPI

The integration of academia and experiential education has been at the core of WPI’s mission since the institute’s inception in 1865. Although it has undergone several design changes, our logo has always depicted this mission alongside our university name, colors, and founding year. If you look closely, you will see that the center of WPI’s logo features both a ribbon and a shield. The ribbon reads, “Lehr und Kunst,” which translates to “Theory and Practice.” The two books on the shield represent theory, and the arm and hammer represent practice, or skilled art. WPI’s goal is to instill in our students the most up-to-date knowledge as well as the ability to apply this knowledge to practical situations. In other words, we produce students who have technical “hard” skills as well as “soft” skills such as problem solving, analyzing, working in teams, and critical thinking.

To cultivate these softer skills, WPI encourages experiential education through multiple avenues, including projects, internships, and cooperative education programs (co-ops). WPI’s project-based curriculum requires every student to connect theory and practice, applying knowledge from the classroom and laboratory to address social, economic, and business challenges while developing essential “soft” skills. You will hear undergraduate students discuss these three common projects:

• Great Problems Seminar (GPS): This two-course introduction to university research and project work for first-year students is aimed at applying technology to solving current, real-world problems.
• Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP): This nine-credit-hour interdisciplinary requirement enables students to connect science and technology with social issues and humans needs through a team-based problem-solving experience. Many students complete IQPs at one of WPI’s more than 45 project centers across the globe during their junior year.
• Major Qualifying Project (MQP): Through this senior-year capstone project, students gain real-world design or research experience in their major fields. Each year, over 60 of these projects are corporate sponsored. We welcome opportunities for sponsorship and ask companies to provide non-mission-critical or wish list projects as well as internal liaisons who are willing to work with faculty advisors and teams of 3–4 students.

Many of our students also take part in summer internships and co-ops. If your company is actively recruiting for internship or co-op positions, please consider attending WPI’s Spring Career Fair on February 18, 2016. At our most recent fair in September we welcomed 200 companies and 2,900 students, and we anticipate similar numbers for the spring event. Registration is now open.

Learn more about corporate-sponsored projects and WPI’s co-op program.