Global Experience Office

The Global Experience Office (GEO) within The Global School at WPI provides risk management, travel education and preparation, and administrative support to students, faculty, and staff participating in WPI-sponsored off-campus travel. This includes the Global Projects Program, faculty-led off-campus residential projects, athletic teams and student organizations traveling internationally, and support for employees who are traveling.

The GEO team strives to ensure that off-campus programs are safe, cost-effective, and accessible to all students while cultivating informed travelers and fostering global and intercultural competency as students engage with local and global communities.

Global Travel Guidance
CONTACT
Location: Laurie A. Leshin Global Project Center
Phone: 508-831-5547
Fax: 508-831-5485
Preview Simon Award Gold Medallion 2024

WPI selected as winner of the NAFSA 2024 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for Campus Internationalization

In recognition of Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s (WPI) commitment to immersive global experiential learning, NAFSA: Association of International Educators has selected WPI as winner of a NAFSA 2024 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for Campus Internationalization. Since 2002, NAFSA, the world’s largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education and exchange, has presented the awards annually to American colleges and universities that demonstrate outstanding commitment to and accomplishment in campus internationalization.

NAFSA defines internationalization as the conscious effort to integrate and infuse international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the philosophy of postsecondary education. The organization has chosen to recognize WPI for its Global Projects for All Initiative. The initiative seeks to maximize the number of students who participate in WPI’s Global Projects Program, in part by removing financial barriers.

Preview IIE Heiskell Award Seal

WPI Awarded IIE Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has been awarded a 2023 Institute of International Education (IIE) Andrew Heiskell Award in the category of student mobility and exchange for its ongoing efforts to expand access to the university’s Global Projects Program.  

 The award promotes and honors outstanding initiatives in international higher education by recognizing innovative and successful programs in several categories. It is named after Andrew Heiskell, a former chairman of Time Inc., member of the Executive Committee of IIE’s Board of Trustees, a renowned international and cultural philanthropist and a long-time supporter of international education. 

 WPI received the award for its Global Projects Program and Global Projects for All initiative. A signature component of WPI’s project-based learning model, the Global Projects Program facilitates student travel to more than 50 project centers across the USA and in 30 countries around the world. 

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Preparing To Go Off-Campus
Propose Off-Campus Travel
Department of Integrative & Global Studies
The Global School
Global Projects Program
Lifelong Impact of Projects

Announcements

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Global Impact

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Making a Difference in Armenia

Through a partnership with the American University of Armenia and driven by alum Mike Aghajanian '80, WPI students have worked on projects that make an impact at one of WPI's newer project centers. 

Read more in the WPI Journal
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A Sweet, Interdisciplinary Experience

The Switzerland Project Center is one of the few to host both Interactive Qualifying Projects (IQP) and Major Qualifying Projects (MQP).

Read more in the WPI Journal
New Hampshire map

White Mountains, New Hampshire Project Center

Building Confidence While Helping the Environment

Read more in the WPI Journal
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Student Project: Living With Fracking in Albania

This student team won first place in the President's IQP Awards for their project highlighting fracking's impact on women in Albania

Read more in the WPI Journal
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WPI’s First Project Center

WPI's Washington DC project center celebrates its 50th year

Read more in the WPI Journal
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Meet Our Staff

Q&A with Colin Watters, Director of Global Risk Management

Answers to questions about ways to keep travelers safe 

Read more in the WPI Journal

Media Coverage

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Waste Management Review
JSS project uncovers the importance of recycling education

An article in Australia's Waste Management Review highlighted the work of WPI students during their Interactive Qualifying Project at the Melbourne Project Center. The students helped Jesuit Social Services' Ecological Justice Hub to support local recycling solutions by designing a plastic recycling assembly line to collect, sort, and recycle bottle caps and turn them into new products. In March, the student team was honored for its work as winners of the Forum on Education Abroad's Award for Academic Achievement Abroad.

 

 

 

Bangor Daily News
Half of all bikes in Acadia are now electric

The Bangor Daily News and other media outlets reported on the results from a study by students at WPI's Acadia National Park, Maine Project Center in Bar Harbor. Students, as part of WPI's interactive qualifying project requirement and the Global Projects Program, have been collecting data on e-bike usage in the national park since 2019.

Additional Publications: Government Technology | WFVX-TV (Fox - Bangor, Maine) | WGME-TV (CBS - Portland, Maine)
United Press International (UPI)
State Department gives grants to expand study abroad programs

WPI will launch a new initiative to increase access to off-campus project-based learning experiences through the Global Projects Program, with funding from a State Department IDEAS grant. The effort will focus on students with disabilities. The project, led by the Global Experience Office in collaboration with the Office of Accessibility Services, is highlighted in this UPI news report.

 

IIENetworker
WPI’s Pioneering Approach to Global Project-Based Learning

WPI’s distinctive global project-based learning is featured in the Spring issue of IIENetworker magazine from the Institute of International Education. Read to learn how our students apply their knowledge to authentic real-world problems at our global project centers, and how our alumni say this approach shaped them personally and professionally. The article by Kathleen Head, director of the Global Experience Office, and Krista Miller, assistant director of the Global Experience Office, details WPI’s project-based learning model, the Global Projects Program, and the Interactive Qualifying Project.