The interdisciplinary Professional Writing program is designed to complement the engineering, technical, and scientific strengths students receive from a WPI education, and increase career success through the qualitative, design, writing, and analytical skills taught.
Proposal writing, ethnographic research, qualitative reasoning, and presentation skills increase an engineer’s value to employers, better inform clients, and develop team leadership capacity. A science major might choose to benefit from Professional Writing courses for translation, leading to an overseas or intercultural assignment.
Graduates with an interdisciplinary major or second major in Professional Writing are prime candidates to continue their education in medical, technical, veterinary, law, or pharmacy school; pursue such core communication careers as web design, analytics, technical communication, and game design; or position themselves on the fast track to a career in their WPI technical, engineering, or science major.
Average Starting Salary
WPI Graduates:
- Bachelor's: $N/A
- Master's: N/A
- PhD: N/A
Average National Salary (O*Net): $69,030
Average National Starting Salary (bls.gov site) $71,950
Average National Starting Bachelor’s Degree Salary reported by the NACE Salary Survey: $31,059 (Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies)
Download the WPI Post-Graduation Reports for more information on salaries.
Companies that have Hired WPI Professional Writers
- Gerber Technology
- HighRes BioSolutions
- ICONICS
- Rescale, Inc.
- UMASS Memorial Medical Center
Download the WPI Post-Graduation Reports for more companies that have hired WPI graduates.
Sample Job Titles
- Business Development Manager
- Document Specialist
- Fire Protection Engineer
- Software Engineer (Developer, Automation)
- Technical Editor/Writer
Visit O*Net Online for more information on job titles.
Graduate Schools
- University of Arizona
Sample Professional Associations and Clubs
- The Communicators Club
- Association of Health Care Journalists
- National Association of Science Writers
- Public Relations Society of America
- Society of Environmental Journalists
- Society for Technical Communication
- The Towers (WPI Student Newspaper)
- World Federation of Science Journalists
Sample MQP titles
- Creating an Electronic Textbook: A New Resource for WPI’s Introduction to Robotics Course
- Framing NASA: An Analysis of How the Space Agency is Portrayed in Popular Media
- The Rhetoric of Trade Journals: An Analysis of Chemical Engineering Professionalization in Print
- ESL Writing Support
Visit WPI’s Electronic Projects Collection for more MQP titles.
Popular Industries for Technical Writers
- Architectural Engineering and Related Services
- Computer Systems Design & Related Services
- Employment Services
- Management Scientific and Technical Services Consulting
- Scientific Research and Development Services
- Software Publishers
Visit O*Net Online for a list of more industries.