Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s (WPI) Interdisciplinary Global Studies Division (IGSD) will host a Global Opportunities Fair from 4 to 6 p.m. Sept. 21 to showcase the university’s 26 Project Centers located around the world. The fair will be held in the Campus Center Odeum.
WPI’s revolutionary and interdisciplinary project-based curriculum helps students put knowledge to work by providing them with opportunities to develop meaningful solutions to real-world problems. As part of their undergraduate degree requirements, the Global Projects Program (GPP) allows WPI students to pursue hands-on, real-world project opportunities in all corners of the world. Through their project work, WPI students work in teams to tackle problems that lie at the interface of science, technology, social issues, and human needs; it is a process that helps them develop an understanding of other cultures and learn such valuable life skills as leadership, entrepreneurship, and project team work.
The Global Opportunities Fair provides a forum for students to learn about WPI’s ongoing global projects, and to speak with the center directors. All of WPI’s Project Centers will be represented at the fair, and more than 800 students expected to attend. Students will also be able to gather information on each of the project sites, gain career advice, and learn about the costs involved (and financial aid availability). Faculty, staff, and students will also have a chance to get their passport photos taken.
For more than three decades, WPI has sent more engineering and science students abroad for academic-related research than any other university in the United States. The GPP combines WPI’s project-based curriculum with a research emphasis on local and regional sustainable development. Through this program, WPI students focus on the strategies and needs of state and local government and non-government agencies engaged in the challenge of creating healthy, prosperous, and environmentally responsible communities around the world.
