Global Experience Office

An article in Australia's Waste Management Review highlighted the work of WPI students during their Interactive Qualifying Project at the Melbourne Project Center. The students helped Jesuit Social Services' Ecological Justice Hub to support local recycling solutions by designing a plastic recycling assembly line to collect, sort, and recycle bottle caps and turn them into new products. In March, the student team was honored for its work as winners of the Forum on Education Abroad's Award for Academic Achievement Abroad.

The Bangor Daily News and other media outlets reported on the results from a study by students at WPI's Acadia National Park, Maine Project Center in Bar Harbor. Students, as part of WPI's interactive qualifying project requirement and the Global Projects Program, have been collecting data on e-bike usage in the national park since 2019.

WPI will launch a new initiative to increase access to off-campus project-based learning experiences through the Global Projects Program, with funding from a State Department IDEAS grant. The effort will focus on students with disabilities. The project, led by the Global Experience Office in collaboration with the Office of Accessibility Services, is highlighted in this UPI news report.

WPI’s distinctive global project-based learning is featured in the Spring issue of IIENetworker magazine from the Institute of International Education. Read to learn how our students apply their knowledge to authentic real-world problems at our global project centers, and how our alumni say this approach shaped them personally and professionally. The article by Kathleen Head, director of the Global Experience Office, and Krista Miller, assistant director of the Global Experience Office, details WPI’s project-based learning model, the Global Projects Program, and the Interactive Qualifying Project.