Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Other Opportunities

Other Opportunities

Since 1982 WPI has offered a summer-program for high school science & engineering students named Frontiers. Also, beginning in 1997, WPI began offering a summer outreach program for girls entering the sixth grade, Camp REACH, to promote women in math & science. WPI participates in a collaborative effort with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the high schools of Massachusetts to support a school called the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at WPI. Mass Academy is an 11th and 12th grade public high school for 100 academically accelerated youths. Juniors receive advanced high school classes at the academy building, with seniors taking the WPI freshman curriculum at the university. The program emphasizes math and science within a comprehensive, interactive program and is the only public school in Massachusetts whose students attend a university full-time as seniors in high school.

A team of Worcester students led by Paul Ventimiglia of won the $500,000 first prize in the 2009 NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge in October 2009. Twenty teams qualified for the event held at the NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View, California managed by the California Space Education and Workforce Institute. Teams design, build and operate robotics that dig up and deposit at least 150 kilograms of simulated lunar material and deposit it in a collection bin, an important in any lunar construction in the future. Of the three teams who placed in the competition, all were represented by team members who are WPI alumni.

There are also opportunities for companies through Corporate and Professional Educatio] (CPE). CPE offers graduate programs and professional development programs that focus on a wide variety of industries and topics. Programs can be delivered online, onsite, on campus or in a blended format.