• Mission & Organization
• First Year Experience
  • Welcome to the Class of 2011
    • Launch Your Project Experience in the First Year
    • Insight Program
    • FAQ's For New Students
    • For Parents
    • Really Useful Links
    • Really Fun Links
    • Contacts
• Degree Programs
• Opportunities
• Academic Assistance
• Career & Grad School Assistance
• People
• Student Life
• Academic Departments
• Student Organizations
• Program Assessment
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Request Information
• Related Sites
  • Graduate Programs
  • Corporate & Professional Education
  • Summer Sessions
  • Student Life
  • Academics & Majors

Launch Your Project Experience in the First Year

Great Problems Seminars

Funded by the Eric Hahn Family Foundation

This is a two-course introduction to university-level research and project work with a focus on themes of current global importance. Everything you do will be tied to current events, societal problems, and human needs. You will begin to develop all of the skills that you will need to complete your research projects in the second, third and fourth years at WPI.

The Great Problem Seminars (GPS) are all about important problems. The skills you will develop are exactly what you will need to be successful in your project work at WPI, and in your future career.  Each GPS is focused on a “Great Problem” with a sequence of team projects exploring many different facets of the problem.  Seminar groups of 15 students meet twice each week to give students the opportunity to transition into College with a faculty guided course aiming at introducing you to Academics at WPI.

There are two Great Problem Seminars planned for the class of 2011: Feed the World and Power the World.

 GPS #1: Feed the World

This seminar will be built around a sequence of projects (team and individual) tied to food, ranging from the biology of genetically engineered corn to the ethics of price supports and fair trade.

Sample questions include:

• Where does the food you see in the grocery store come from?  Where does the money you spend for that food actually go?
• What does the food we waste tell us about people today?  What will waste look like in 100 years?
• What are the promises and dangers of genetically modified foods? 

Each of these questions is the beginning of a research project that could impact and change a culture.

GPS #2: Power the World

This seminar will focus on various forms of energy resources and the history of their technologies.

Sample Projects will focus on:

• The thermodynamics of energy analysis;
• The political and social implications of changing energy sources;
• The historical circumstances surrounding the growth and decline of energy technologies.

Energy is both the cause and solution to a vast array of society’s problems.  How has energy changed society in the past?  How will new sources of energy change society in the future? 

In the Great Problems Seminars, you will take problem solving out of the textbook and into the real world. Participating in a GPS will:

• Jumpstart your project experience at WPI;
• Develop your team work, critical thinking, and presentation skills;
• Engage you in discussion and develop solutions to current events, societal problems, and human needs.
• Forge new lifetime friendships.

Project-Based Learning Community

Project-based Learning Community (Excellent Option)
If you enjoy working in teams, and want to take charge of your own learning, then consider the PLC for your first year at WPI.

The PLC is a totally integrated version of three fundamental courses built around a sequence of team projects.  Students enrolled in this Program are a part of a Learning Community in which a small group of first year students build a foundation for success at WPI.

In the recent past, project teams have:

• Replicated Galileo’s experiments to measure acceleration—using only technology available to Galileo.
• Studied the mathematics of plagues and compared the spread of biological viruses to the spread of computer viruses.
• Studied both the engineering and the ecological and social impact of dams.

The PLC is your full course load for your first two terms.   You will receive credit for Calculus I and Calculus II, Physics I and Physics II, and two courses in Humanities.  Students in the PLC cover the standard topics in Calculus I and II, Physics I and II, use the same text and take the same final exams.

By participating in the Project-based Learning Community, you will

• Treat learning as a cooperative enterprise among students, faculty, and staff;
• Learn by doing, talking, discussing, and presenting your work;
• Develop teamwork through interdisciplinary projects;
• Build a learning support network that will last all four years.

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: November 12, 2007 10:29:32