<p>read different things. Is it fun, overly geeky, how is it to play sports there??</p>
<p>Hi beehee, my post won’t answer any of your questions, but I’ll still post my opinions/observations here anyway, because I posted this in the Harvey Mudd forum the other day (someone was asking about colleges that emphasize both tech and humanities) and I thought it might be useful to someone in this forum too… Good luck in your college investigations.</p>
<p>I don’t put much trust in “standardized” rankings but I’ll comment that, although WPI isn’t well-ranked, in the 2011 Fiske Guide they include WPI in their list of “ten colleges that should be on your radar.” It’s not a well-known college yet, but I think in 10 years it will be. Even though they offer no majors in the humanities (well, maybe one or two), their Humanities Department is the biggest at the school, and they have a required series of humanities classes - they expect you to take multiple humanities courses in a single field, so you develop some deep knowledge. They have a project focus and they encourage studying abroad. There are WPI-sponsored project offices in 17 different countries (plus some in the US - one at Microsoft in Cambridge, Mass, and one at MITRE, for example). Their undergrad curriculum includes two significant projects - the IQP (Individual Qualifying Project), which is not related to your major and tends to have a humanitarian focus; and the MQP (Major Qualifying Project) which is related to your major. For the IQP, many students go abroad, although it’s not a requirement. You can also easily go abroad for the MQP, but I think that’s less common. The IQP and MQP are formal parts of the curriculum so you don’t need to worry about getting behind if you go abroad for a project.</p>
<p>The professors at WPI are focused on teaching, rather than on “making their mark” in research. When I looked at the faculty listing for Computer Science, I found profs that are well-credentialed (several with PhDs from MIT or other high-caliber universities) but they tend to be older. My gut feel is that these profs have finished the part of their career where they’re focused on their own personal accomplishments, and they are passing along their skills to the students. I’m not intending to say that they are not doing research - they are still publishing papers and doing studies (and not all the profs are over 50) - but I think most of their research efforts are focused on students who are doing their MQPs. You can look at the faculty pages of the website to see the areas of research that the profs are particularly interested in. My S attended two classes at WPI when we visited in the Spring (Software Engineering and UI design) and thought the profs were both knowledgeable and approachable. </p>
<p>The city of Worcester is depressed - a former industrial city - so there’s not much to do there. I wouldn’t call it an unsafe city, but it’s definitely not a “fun” city. However, Boston is an easy train ride away, and the train station is within walking distance of campus. I don’t know anything about sports at WPI, although I know they emphasize intramurals and they’re active in rowing (there’s an amazingly long lake in town where they practice and many competitions occur there). They’re also in the process of building an impressive new rec center.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman there this year. She does not particpate in these kinds of forums, so you get my observations. </p>
<p>She likes the smallness of the college. You can easily get around campus and the people are quite friendly. </p>
<p>She is an excellent student but not a wonderkid. She did OK with the verbal and writing parts of the SAT I but she got an 800 in math. Her math SAT II was in the middle upper 700’s. The classes are challenging but do not blow you away. She got 2 A’s and a B so far.</p>
<p>The city of Worcester is a little depressed but there are things to do there. The school organized an outing to the local minor league baseball team with free tickets and a bus to the game. She went and had a fun time. There is a minor league (AHL) hockey team in town and it is about a mile from WPI. She and her friends have gone (walked) to several games. Not being the big leagues has some advantages in that you can get good tickets easily and at pretty cheap prices. </p>
<p>Her roommate was active in varsity sports and did well and had a good time with it. My daughter particpated in a club sport that was just starting out. It was kind of a disaster as they did not have a lot of student participation, but she still had fun and it kept her active. Who knows how it will be in its second year?</p>
<p>There are active fraternities and sororities on campus, if you desire that kind of activity.</p>
<p>So, I believe it is a good school and definitely worth looking into.</p>
<p>Let me first say this. WPI’s project-based model works extremely well for undergraduate engineering (I am an ECE major). For those who learn best by really applying theory in labs and projects as they learn it, WPI’s is a good choice. The types of students who do very well at WPI are those who are very inquisitive and who are willing to work hard until they understand the subject. The introductory courses at WPI are not very difficult (there are no weeder classes) although more advanced courses can be quite challenging. It is very important to develop strong work habits early on (in high school would be best so you can improve your admissions and scholarship chances as well).</p>
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<p>The computer science department at WPI is good although WPI’s strength is and has always been in engineering. There is a lot of new high-quality research going on across various departments at WPI. The computer science department certainly values teaching very much and has a great introductory sequence and software engineering courses. However, I feel that the projects in the CS department are not very challenging. The “natural science” departments and especially the mathematical sciences department are quite small and the faculty interests are very applied. Thus, there will be less offerings in the sciences compared to a state flagship. </p>
<p>This has historically been true although WPI is trying to develop into a more research-oriented university (this comes with both advantages and disadvantages). The faculty are certainly well accomplished and credentialed, but they are hiring many younger faculty at the assistant professor level. The goal for the computer science department is to reach $10 million in external funding (up from the current $3.5 million).</p>
<p>Questions:
I know strengths lie in engineering, but how good is the biology department? (esp. for premed?)
What about foreign languages? (I see that only Spanish and German are offered.)
I assume that the Foisie Scholars program is very competitive, for people with very high test scores or strong scientific background, yes? Do many students that are not Foisie scholars receive more than $19k/yr scholarship?</p>
<p>i am receiving 28k a yearfrom the marshall/chavez/means award and another 6k a year from the wpi scholarship</p>
<p>Regarding the project-based nature of WPI, it looks like this consists of the addition of a second large project, the IQP, in addition to the senior MQP project, the latter of which is not uncommon among engineering schools. Also, there is the freshman Project-Based Learning Community, which is not a point of emphasis on the website, so it is unclear how many students participate. Other schools, like Stevens, include a design element to the curriculum that starts freshman year. Still others tout research opportunities.</p>
<p>I suspect that schools like WPI, Rose, etc. have a more collaborative and hands-on environment since the student body and class sizes are smaller, but does WPI truly have more of a “practice” angle than the other 2500 student tech schools? In other words, I’m sure WPI has its own personality, but is the curriculum unique?</p>
<p>I can’t answer based on personal experience, but I can say that what made me really like WPI was their advocating studying abroad. It seems to me that not many engineering-focused schools encourage study abroad. Many colleges allow it, of course, but few encourage it. The fact that WPI has 17 offices around the world - which they are actively involved with - made a difference to me. I really would like to do a project in the U.K. I’m not likely to investigate it on my own, but WPI makes it easy.</p>