Real-World Learning, From Hawaii to Morocco

Considering creativity

The IQP is the most public face of the Global Projects Program, with approximately 85% of students going off campus to complete a required research project at the intersection of science, technology, and society. In fact, Zhang, Sloan, Polinski, and Coscia were just four of the 1,127 students who worked on an IQP at a project center last year. 

That represents a huge increase from the 15 students who made up the first project center cohort in Washington, D.C., in 1974. Today WPI has more than 50 project centers on six continents.

The growth has been intentional and strategic, notes Mimi Sheller, dean of The Global School. 

Sander Coscia, Kang Zhang, Morgan Polinski, and Nick Sloan (left to right) developed an exceptional team dynamic while working on their IQP in Hawaii.

“WPI developed an ambitious program of bringing our students out into the world because we recognized awareness of global cultural diversity both as an important part of personal development and as something they would need in their future professional lives,” Sheller says. “Pulling students out of the classroom and putting them in different contexts helps them develop the character and skills that we think will help them thrive when they graduate.” 

While students reap benefits from project work regardless of where it is done, the chance to do substantive project work off campus is one of the key ways that WPI’s undergraduate education differs from that available at other STEM schools. 

And data from a recent survey of WPI alumni show that going off campus to complete a required project—whether the IQP, the Humanities and Arts (HUA) requirement, or the Major Qualifying Project (MQP)—significantly strengthens students’ ethics and awareness of how their decisions affect others. Students develop those skills, in part, by working with and learning from people in the local communities. The authentic stakeholder involvement offers students opportunities for deeper personal and professional growth than traditional study-abroad programs do, Sheller notes.

“Being in STEM, our students are very solution-oriented. But to have a good solution you really need firsthand experience of what it is you’re solving for,” says Sheller. “That’s where the off-campus aspect brings students a whole new perspective. They see the creativity of people everywhere and learn about things that people around the world are doing for themselves.”

Put another way, working on a project with people who live and breathe the issue at hand not only broadens students’ horizons, it also can be quite humbling. 

Recognizing reality

That was certainly the case for Julia Milks ’22, who completed her HUA requirement at the project center in Fes, Morocco, during C-Term 2020. 

Working with advisor Rebecca Moody, assistant professor of teaching in the Department of Humanities and Arts, Milks researched the economics, politics, and cultural aspects of the Moroccan mental healthcare system. Her paper, “Psychiatric Healthcare in Morocco: Affordability and Accessibility for Lower-Class Moroccans,” was a finalist for WPI’s Class of 1879 Prize for Outstanding Projects in the Humanities.

Milks already knew when she went to Morocco that she wanted to be a doctor. She had worked in an emergency room the previous summer and was part of WPI’s Pre-Health Program, majoring in biology and biotechnology, with a minor in global public health.

Developing strong relationships with local organizations like Conservation International Hawaii is one of the major responsibilities of the roughly 70 faculty and staff members who serve as project center directors, regardless of whether their project center hosts IQPs, MQPs, or HUA projects.

Project center directors are part of the behind-the-scenes foundation of the Global Projects Program—which also includes the staff at the Global Experience Office and the Global Scholarship available to full-time undergrads—that makes it possible for WPI to offer project-based learning at a scale unmatched by any other university in the United States. 

Kang Zhang holds the keychain he made from fish leather while working on his IQP in Hawaii.

WPI remains committed to providing these opportunities because this kind of multidimensional learning produces professionals and lifelong learners who are prepared to thrive in today’s uncertain world. 

“The experience of living in the community while also researching something about that community means you get far more data and different types of data than you’re ever going to get in the classroom,” says Moody, who has served as the HUA Morocco project center director since 2019. “I can tell students that all of the shops in Fes close at the call to prayer, but it’s different to be there and actually watch it happen.”

Introducing uncertainty can be revelatory for STEM students, who tend to think in concrete terms, Moody adds. “It unsettles students enough to be able to think in more ambiguous and fluid terms. And that’s important, even if what they research when they’re at the project center has nothing to do with their career.”

Data confirms this. Of the more than 2,200 respondents to WPI’s 2021 alumni survey, 95% said their project experience helped prepare them for their current career. This is especially noteworthy given that the survey yielded responses from alumni who graduated as far back as the 1980s, showing that the impact of WPI’s project-based curriculum is dynamic and long-lasting.

All of that—becoming comfortable with new ways of thinking, understanding that others have valuable insights, and developing a global awareness—is a more crucial part of STEM education every day, Sheller says, as rapidly advancing technology brings ever-more uncertainty to our lives and our planet. 

“Technology only exists in a human context. And until you step out of your comfort zone and meet very different people who are different kinds of users, you won’t be able to propose a good STEM-based approach to an issue or design good technology,” Sheller says. “The Global Projects Program helps WPI students understand how to use their STEM education ethically and responsibly.”