Research Opportunities
An education at WPI is much more than a set of classes and projects. To help you make the most of your time at WPI this page lists some opportunities to enhance and extend your education, on-campus and off, and during the summer as well as the academic year. Whether your direction after WPI is professional employment or graduate school, summer and extra-curricular experiences will greatly enhance your qualifications. They often also enhance your financial situation!
Research Experiences
IQPs and MQPs provide excellent opportunities to do leading-edge research, but there are more:
Faculty Research Labs
Many faculty are eager to have qualified undergraduates work in their laboratories. Depending on the circumstances this work may be purely voluntary, it may be paid via work-study funds or from the professor’s research budget, or it may be for academic credit. Part-time work during the academic year may lead to full-time paid work during the summer. Whether or not you ultimately pursue a research career, these experiences are excellent ways to learn more about your chosen field and to gain professional experience. And of course they are excellent preparation for graduate school.
Summer Research Experiences at WPI
WPI supports individual student researchers in faculty labs via a competitive application process through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program. The SURF program offers research opportunities in a variety of different topics and is a great way for students pursuing graduate studies to spend their summer. Applications are due March 5, 2012. More information may be obtained from the Undergraduate Studies Office at 508-831-5404.
Summer Research Experiences Everywhere Else
Many universities offer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs—programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) designed to allow students to complete complex projects and gain valuable research and lab experience—during the summer. Most of these programs provide a financial stipend, as well as free housing and a certain allocation for food and travel expenses. REUs are offered in many different subject areas including, but not limited to:
- Biological Sciences
- Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
- Computer and Information Science and Engineering
- Engineering
- Mathematical Sciences
- Physics
- Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
The National Science Foundation website for REU programs provides additional subject areas, as well as the ability to search for research areas that you may be interested in pursuing. This website changes over time—projects initiated or renewed this year, such as HMC’s, are in the process of being added.
Summer Internships and Summer Jobs
Some may think that the Career Development Center is just for permanent employment. It also helps match students with summer job or internship opportunities. These provide a great way to put your education to use, learn more about a potential employer, and possibly to experience a different part of the country.
Scholarships and Fellowships
A wide range of fellowships, scholarships and grants are available for research, graduate school, internships, international study, or completion of your undergraduate education. They may be undertaken in the United States or abroad, and they may be for a summer, an academic year, or longer. Some are quite prestigious, well-known, and highly competitive, such as the Rhodes Scholarships.
WPI has a very good record of success in Fellowship and Scholarship programs. A list of many of these programs together with application information is available on the Fellowship web page.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: February 08, 2012 17:29:53