Course Registration

Mid-May: Students will receive WPI login information. 

Mid-May: Math Placement Exam Opens 

Mid-May: Students will receive an email from their Academic Support Advisor with information about the next steps leading up to course registration.

May-June: Learn more about academics at WPI by completing your First Year Academic Modules and reviewing the information below about your major's course recommendations. Use this information to complete your Course Preferences Survey.  

June 8-June 24: Students and families are invited to participate in one of our First-Year Welcome Experiences where students will have an opportunity to meet with their Academic Support Advisor and review their course preferences for the fall. Students and families who are not able to attend one of our in-person programs will be able to participate in a virtual experience and connect with their advisor. If you are unable to attend an in-person or virtual First-Year Welcome Experience, your Academic Support Advisor will contact you in mid-June regarding next steps for course registration.

Mid-Late July: Your Academic Support Advisor will register you for your Fall semester courses based on the course preferences survey you finalized during First Year Welcome Experience.

Early August: Your Academic Support Advisor will reach out to let you know your schedule is finalized and how you can review it in Workday. You can then make changes to your fall schedule, if you'd prefer. 

October: Attend a workshop or presentation with your Insight Advisor and/or Academic Support Advisor to learn how to navigate Workday and the WPI Planner in order to build saved schedules for your C and D term courses. 

Mid-November: First year students course registration becomes live, and students are able to register for their C and D term courses.

Registration for Spring Semester courses will occur in Mid-November.  Please make sure to create more than one plan for your C and D term courses just in case you don’t get into your first selections. Your Insight Advisor is available to assist you with your schedule.

Scroll further down on this webpage to see what courses are recommended for your chosen major(s). 

1. Completing the Math Placement Exam is required for students who intend to register for Calculus in the Fall semester. Be sure to consider your Math Placement results when selecting course preferences. It is the best guide for selecting the most appropriate math course in A and B terms.
2. Students considering a modern language should consider taking the placement exam to determine which level of the language you should begin with:
   1. For Spanish Placement Information, Please Email: Professor Angel Rivera (arivera@wpi.edu)
   2. For German Placement Information, Please Email: Professor Daniel DiMassa (ddimassa@wpi.edu)
   3. For Arabic Placement Information, Please Email: Professor Mohammed El Hamzaoui (melhamzaoui@wpi.edu)
   4. For Chinese Placement Information, Please Email: Professor Wen-Hua Du (wdu2@wpi.edu)
   5. For Integrated Skills in English (for International Students): The placement exam is not currently required, and students are welcome to register for all ISE courses. Please contact Prof. Esther Boucher-Yip (efboucher@wpi.edu) or Prof. Althea Danielski (amdanielski@wpi.edu) if you have any questions

Consider if you have AP, IB, or Transfer Credit when selecting course preferences. We recognize that you may not have received all of your scores by the time you select your course preferences, so we recommend communicating with your Academic Support Advisor over the summer if your preferences change once you receive your scores. Keep in mind that you cannot apply credit to your degree requirements for the same course twice, so if you received credit from your exams, retaking the course at WPI would mean foregoing the AP credit. 

• Courses WPI Accepts AP Credit for
• Courses WPI Accepts IB Credit for
• Information on transferring course credit

Program Tracking Sheets can help you to see the full curriculum for your intended program of study. 

Incoming students will follow the tracking sheet linked for the class of 2030. If the 2030 tracking sheet is not yet available for their major(s), students should refer to the class of 2029 tracking sheet for a rough idea of their requirements while the 2030 tracking sheets are finalized.

Find your Program Tracking Sheet for your major here

The Office of Academic Advising is here to guide and connect you with resources to assist with your academic plans and goals throughout your time at WPI. 

Meet our Academic Advising team! All students are assigned an Academic Support Advisor in the summer before their first year. This advisor supports students throughout their entire WPI experience. In the summer leading up to your first semester, the best way to contact your Academic Support Advisor is to email them directly. Once classes begin, you can schedule an appointment with your advisor through Tutortrac. 

You will be prompted to declare your major near the end of B-Term of your first year. During the spring semester, you will also be assigned a Faculty Advisor in that major. Your Faculty Advisor will provide major-specific support and guidance throughout the remainder of your time at WPI.

If you are still undecided about your major by the end of your first semester, that's okay! You will still be assigned a Faculty Advisor who can work with you to explore different academic pathways until you are ready to declare a major. The Office of Academic Advising also has many resources to help you explore your options and interests. Contact us for more information. 

• You may also consider registering for FY 1800 - Discovering Majors And Careers - in A term or C term. In this course, students will utilize career assessment tools, research majors of interest and career paths, attend major panels, speak to students/faculty in majors of interest, and participate in informational interviews with alumni.

The Great Problems Seminar (GPS) is a two-term course that immerses first-year students into university-level research and introduces them to the project-based curriculum at WPI. As part of The Global School at WPI, the course gives students and faculty the opportunity to step outside their disciplines to solve problems focused on themes of global importance. 

How many courses are there that give you credit for working on one of the world’s most pressing challenges?  And while you are working on issues of pandemic, food, energy, climate change, sheltering the displaced, you will also develop great friendships, important skills and valuable relationships with faculty.  Best of all, your solution could make a real difference in someone’s life. 

The Great Problem Seminars (GPS) give first-year students and faculty the opportunity to step outside their disciplines to solve problems focused on themes of global importance, culminating in annual Poster Presentation Days that celebrate students’ innovative research. While tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems, students who choose these classes will develop skills, knowledge and confidence valuable not only for the rest of their college career, but also for life.

Each GPS consists of two linked courses that are taught by two professors from different disciplines. In the first term you will explore many facets of a great problem, such as air pollution, access to clean water, or disease control. In the second term you will work in a team to produce a solution and share it with the WPI community.

GPS courses are a two-term linked project experience taught by two faculty members.  In the first term you will explore many facets of a great problem and then, in the second, work in a team with support of faculty to produce a solution, and show it off to the whole campus!  Note that each course carries different credit and may count towards different requirements depending on your major. 

Great Problems Seminars are only available in A and B term of your first year.

Taught by Derren Rosbach and Stephen McCauley

Cities in the 21st century face a range of interconnected social, environmental, and technical problems. Many communities struggle to secure healthy food, clean air and water, and affordable energy, while inequality, climate vulnerability, and poverty persist despite growing awareness and technological progress. Yet cities are also hubs of concentrated innovation, intelligence, experimentation, and collective problem-solving.

This two-term course uses the city of Worcester as a living laboratory to explore the challenges and opportunities cities present as we seek sustainable ways of living. Students will investigate key systems that support urban life, including water, energy, transportation, housing, land use, and biodiversity, learning from conceptual models and empirical evidence in the city of Worcester. Field trips, urban walks, and guest speakers will complement classroom activities and allow students to tie concepts to the real world while learning about the city. 

The second part of the course explicitly connects theory to practice as students work in teams to address a priority Green Worcester project topic. Topics will be determined in consultation with city offices, including the Department of Sustainability and Resilience, to address issues that are relevant to city planning. Teams will contribute to these topics through literature review, field work, and design applications, addressing such topics as green infrastructure design, cool pockets and heat resilience measures, quality of water in the city’s lakes and ponds, and renewable energy siting.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit ES 1000 credit and 1/3 unit SS 1000 credit.

Taught by Karen Oates and Tsitsi Masvawure 

We are consistently confronted with novel and unique medical challenges. From global pandemics that sweep through entire continents to more localized health challenges. Why do some communities or populations seem more prone to certain diseases than others? Why do millions of people, globally, continue to die from preventable diseases every year despite amazing technological advances in the health field?  This course explores these questions from multiple disciplinary backgrounds. Through case studies, you will practice being "disease detectives" and help uncover the origins of diseases. You will also explore the role of technology in solving diseases.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit BB 1000 credit and 1/3 SS 1000 credit. 

1/3 unit of this Great Problems Seminar also counts towards a minor in Global Public Health.

Taught by Gillian Smith and Laura Roberts

AI is a concept and technology that is the cause of much hope, anxiety, and imagined opportunity. Misconceptions abound, and many have formed quick, deeply felt opinions before fully understanding AI, both socially and technologically. In this GPS, we will explore the history and future of artificial intelligence, and imagine new futures with—or without—AI. The culminating project will be to build games or interactive media that express your own, hopeful, imagined future and that ask and answer: for this future to exist, what must happen with AI from this point forward and what must we do to get there? Through game design project work, you will gain skills in interdisciplinary teamwork and interactive experience design, as well as game production skills in audio, visual arts, writing, and/or programming.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit SS1000 credit and IMGD 2000-level credit. Also satisfies the IMGD social implications requirement.

Taught by Marja Bakermans and Geoffrey Pfeifer

Join us in exploring a positive future climate outlook that accounts for, but moves beyond climate anxiety and toward a regenerative approach. In this course, we will use integrative (scientific and humanistic) project-based approaches to understanding current and future issues at local to global scales. The course fosters a positive perspective by focusing on nature-based climate solutions, technological innovations, and social justice, empowering students to recognize their agency as professionals and leaders in a changing world. Students in past courses described how learning and connecting scientific knowledge, cultural awareness, research skills, and values contributed to feeling empowered to understand—and act on—the climate crisis.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit BB1000 credit and 1/3 unit INTL1000 (counts towards HUA) credit.

Taught by Svetlana Nikitina and Jianyu Liang

This course focuses on material resources and reusing them—recycling. It blends engineering with humanities and builds a framework for the world in which students will live, showing them how they can make the world different through their ingenuity and innovation. Policy and societal issues are also discussed in the context of the recovery and recycling. Students collaborate with the NSF Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling (CR3) and work on projects sponsored by leading global corporations.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit ES 1000 credit and 1/3 unit HU1100 credit.

Taught by Kathryn Crockett and Amanda Wittman

How do you provide shelter for over 7 billion people, almost half of whom live on less than $5.50 a day? With rising slum populations, increasing natural disasters, and overflowing refugee camps, how do we address the growing demands for safe living spaces? What do we need to understand as designers, engineers, or aid workers to provide shelter for the world? Working in teams in this design studio, we will learn design concepts, the Design-Build process, materials, and structure to address this housing challenge. We will create a model that is affordable, safe, and appropriate for our selected population.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit ES1000 credit and 1/3 unit SSPS1000 credit.

Taught by Marja Bakermans and William San Martín

Throughout most of Earth’s history, species disappeared at an average rate of 1 to 5 per year, and fossil evidence shows that five mass extinction catastrophes have occurred. Scientists estimate that we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction. Where are extinctions currently having the greatest impact? How might conservation efforts prevent them? This Great Problems Seminar examines debates about past and present causes of extinction, the factors that contribute to vulnerability or resiliency of endangered species, and the consequences of species loss, including the links with pathogenic outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This GPS carries 1/3 unit BB1000 credit and 1/3 unit INTL1000 (counts towards HUA) credit.