Why Become an Off-Campus Project Sponsor?
Imagine a consulting agency that can assign a team of young, talented, hard-working men and women to solve an important problem for your organization-perhaps a problem beyond the scope of your staff, or one you simply don't have the time or resources to tackle. Imagine that this team will thoroughly research your problem, develop solutions and recommendations, and report back to you, orally and in writing, in just a few months - all for a small fee.
Now, imagine that by securing this agency's services, you are also helping to provide a remarkably effective real-world education to a new generation of technological professionals.
The "agency" is actually a university: WPI. The "consultants" are WPI students, engaged in the university's innovative and much-celebrated approach to undergraduate education, and coached by faculty members who typically have years of project-management experience.
Over the past three decades, hundreds of WPI student projects have been completed with corporations, government agencies, professional organizations, nonprofit agencies and individuals around the world. The projects put the creativity, energy and expertise of outstanding college students to work on an extraordinarily wide range of technical, economic, social and political issues.
The Project Experience at WPI
WPI believes future technological professionals should learn to apply what they learn in the classroom and laboratory to real problems, and to develop an appreciation for the social, political and economic issues they'll encounter during their careers. For this reason, all of our undergraduates complete two significant projects, one a design or research experience in their major field and one that requires students to tackle complex problems at the interface between science, technology and society.
The projects are generally completed by teams of students under the supervision of one or more faculty advisors. Each project represents the equivalent of at least one quarter of a year's work. Students are expected to complete adequate preparation for their projects-including literature reviews and course work-to become familiar with the focus area and to learn about methods and techniques they may need to employ. Between preparation and actual project work, a student team will devote more than 1,000 hours of work to a typical project.
The Benefits of Project Sponsorship
Sponsorship of WPI student projects offers substantial benefits to sponsors, to students and to faculty advisors.
For sponsors, the benefits include
- solutions to problems that are important to them;
- the opportunity to evaluate potential new employees;
- a close working relationship with one or more members of the WPI faculty;
- fresh ideas, new perspectives and enthusiasm students bring to their work;
- the new technologies, computer applications and ideas students generate;
- new insights into their operations that can often be discovered only by people outside of the organization;
- the satisfaction of working closely with students and watching them grow and mature;
- the prestige of taking part in one of the world's most innovative and effective approaches to technological education.
For students, the benefits include
- the excitement and relevance of working on real-world projects in a global context;
- the experience of addressing problems whose solutions are of great interest and value to the sponsoring organization;
- the resources-human and physical-that sponsors make available, which enable them to tackle problems with exceptional thoroughness and professionalism.
For faculty advisors, the benefits include
- the excitement and relevance of working with students to address real-world problems in a global context;
- the opportunity to explore issues and ideas in fields beyond one's primary discipline;
- the chance to learn new research methodologies and techniques that may enrich one's own teaching and scholarship;
- the opportunity to bring advising experience and disciplinary perspective to bear on new issues and ideas;
- the chance to travel and immerse oneself in other cultures.
A Wide Range of Options for Project Sponsorship
Sponsored projects at WPI can take many forms. Many organizations begin their involvement by sponsoring a single project. Not infrequently, they find that the first project suggests another and so on, until that single project has grown into an ongoing program of project sponsorship.
Off-campus projects are generally completed during one of WPI's seven-week academic terms, though with preparatory research, the complete project experience may extend over two or more terms.
Perhaps the best way to understand how your organization can benefit from sponsoring WPI projects is to read about how the project experience has worked for other organizations. We will be glad to provide you with abstracts of completed projects. These summaries will help you see the broad range of problems students have addressed over the years and aid you in shaping your own ideas and needs into manageable project topics.
The Next Step
If you're intrigued by the idea of sponsoring WPI student projects, we encourage you to contact us for more information.
To request more information about project sponsorship via mail, phone, fax or e-mail, please contact:
WPI Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division
100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
Phone: 508-831-5547
Fax: 508-831-5485
global@wpi.edu
Last modified: February 05, 2007 12:37:27