Innovative and integrated degree programs are a big part of what is attracting Rhode Island students to Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Rhode Island is one of the top five sources of students for the school, according to an enrollment breakdown of WPI’s class of 2005.
Sophomore Tasha Andrade, from East Providence, is pursuing a double major at WPI in public policy and biotechnology with a concentration in genetics. She said the school’s flexibility is what has enabled her to take on degrees in such disparate subject areas.
While shopping for colleges, "I was definitely not looking for a tech school," she said. "I didn’t want to go to a tech school without the humanities, because I definitely wanted the public policy piece."
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WPI’s online application was free, and when a friend of hers needed a ride to the school for open house, Andrade was sold.
The next phase of preparation for a career as a legal advisor with a specialty in bioethics is law school, Andrade said.
Senior computer science major Greg Milette, who is from Cumberland, said "a lot of schools have a set program of courses you have to take. Here there is more flexibility."
The school was founded in 1865 on the principles of theory and practice, which were exemplified by Boynton Hall where classes were held to explain the theories and principles and Washburn Hall where those theories and principles were demonstrated in practical applications. Those two buildings remain, though now serving other purposes, two of the oldest structures on the WPI campus. Today the school has 2,700 undergraduate students and 600 graduate students pursuing degrees ranging from environmental engineering to theater technology. To teach and nurture its students, WPI has 220 faculty members.
And the emphasis, said WPI Director of Media Relations Patricia M. Samson, is on the "hands-on" aspect of education.
Milette’s Major Qualifying Project (MQP) – to create a "smart" soccer player, a computer that could think like an actual player and score goals – enabled him to explore his area of primary interest, artificial intelligence. His project team won the president’s award for the best project of the year.
In addition to the MQP, in their primary area of study (usually during their junior year), each WPI student must complete an Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP), on which students collaborate with others – each from a different major – on a project that is based on a subject outside any of their majors. Each project focuses on a topic relating science or technology to society, and is usually completed over a two-month period as part of WPI’s Global Perspective Program in another country. The projects are equivalent in credit to three courses.
At each site, a support team helps students with related aspects of the projects, such as housing and transportation. Each project is also sponsored by a local agency that provides office space.
WPI’s Director of Global Operations, Natalie A. Mello, said that through this program, WPI sends more students off campus than any school in the country.
The program also requires students to write reports – something that can be a little out of the routine for the more mathematically inclined.
"Some of them find it very challenging," Mello said. "It’s not black and white. They’re surprised that there’s a definite methodology to writing a research summary."
For his IQP, Milette was assigned to bring solar power to a village school in Thailand, where there is no electricity.
"This was a subject I had never tackled before," he said.
Milette’s group decided to use solar energy to power a VCR to be used to view educational videos. During their seven-week term, the team succeeded in constructing a system effective enough to keep a VCR running for about three hours each day.
Most villagers had never seen a television before, Milette said, and when a home video of the village made its debut, "I think the whole village was there."
