Worcester Polytechnic Institute is located in the center of Worcester, MA and is home to around six thousand undergraduate students. The campus, although rather small, is packed with STEM centered buildings, materials, and professors as the school focuses primarily on science. One of the things that really drew me here was just this, along with our degree we are required to complete two large projects, our Interactive Qualifying Project (done outside of our major) and our Major Qualifying Project (done in our major). Along with these projects, most classes incorporate this team style learning as well, with teams of up to ten working on a software engineering project. Although the school is focused on STEM, the abilities you garner from this style of learning are unmatched. College is to prepare you for the “real world”, WPI feels about as close as it gets.

A quote I often use “High School is where you learn to learn”, which applies very well to WPI as well. Even if a student decided not to enter a field that requires their major, they will still have the skills to work in a team no matter what field it’s in. My education at WPI has been equal parts content knowledge and content application which is something you don't see at many universities. The larger projects last an entire semester (compared to our 7 week courses the projects are 14 weeks) and require collaboration between not only students but supervisors and even department heads. This pushes everyone to look deeper into the content as it is a very focused project. My student teaching practicum was no exception to everything I mentioned, the growth I had was incredible and I thank WPI’s project based learning for that.