Lifelong Project Impact

WPI’s distinctive project-based educational model has been praised by the most recognized and valued resources in the academic world, as well as by those who know the benefits of a WPI education firsthand—WPI students and alumni. 

While we’ve never had any doubt about the value of this method of education, we now have powerful empirical evidence of its effectiveness—an extensive study of more than 2,200 WPI alumni has confirmed that there are lifelong professional and personal benefits of experiential, hands-on learning through project work.

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In the 2021 survey—analysis conducted by Hanover Research—alumni were asked to rate the extent to which their project work contributed to 38 professional skills and abilities, world views, and personal attributes. Respondents from this survey reported significantly greater impact from formal project experience across all 38 areas as compared to alumni surveyed in 2012 regarding the same 38 attributes. The 2021 survey also revealed that female alumni reported more positive impact of project work than males in all 38 areas, with the most notable differences in world views and personal impacts. 

Of the more than 2,200 alumni across a span of 39 years who responded to the 2021 survey on the impact of their off-campus project experiences:

2021 PBL Alumni Survey Data

These WPI alumni confirmed the findings of a 2014 Gallup-Purdue index poll that showed students who undertook long-term college projects report more career satisfaction and stronger connections to professional satisfaction, advancement, and personal enrichment.

Project work can literally be life changing.
  • Mary Ellen Blunt ‘79
The way it changed my view of the world translates to multiple, different areas of my life. I look at my community as a much smaller piece of a larger world than I used to. I see diversity in a different way.
  • Nicholas Pelletier '09
The biggest impact that project work had on me was the confidence level that it gave me to go out and take challenges head-on and have the confidence that I have a good chance of succeeding.
  • John Kopchik '77
It all applied instantly to what I needed to do when I got out of school. The groundwork was there because of the project.
  • Megan Holmes '05

Media Coverage

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NBC Boston
Letting Nature Be Your Teacher

Associate Professor Elisabeth Stoddard of the Department of Integrative & Global Studies within The Global School spoke with NBC10 as part of their Climate 2022 coverage about the Farm Stay Project Center in Paxton, Massachusetts. Through the partnership with Turn Back Time, WPI students are helping some of the youngest learners get excited about environmental education through the university’s project-based education.

Shelter Island Reporter
Sylvester Manor Windmill Tilts Toward the Future to Harness the Wind for Energy

The Shelter Island Reporter covered the work WPI students Carly Campbell, Anna Carriero, Alaa Hassan, Brandon Weyant and Georgianna Wood, all of the Class of 2020, did during their MQP at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm. The students designed a modern wind energy system to augment the farm's windmill and its future energy production potential.