Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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jective is to serve the world so it ' s an IQP. Wagner: Right within our de- partment we generally have a . . . strong, active, good feeling about the MQP. I don ' t think that ' s shared on the IQP. I ' d like to know the worth — I ' m talking about three good, heavy subjects. I think three subjects . . . are much better for the engineers . . . Heventhal: While not all faculty believe it is worth their time to become involved in projects far outside their specialties, it is in this realm, on the mall, so to speak, between the two towers, where some of our inventive students will learn most. Bridgeman: good. ' I think the idea is Bolz: . . . we are trying to make a serious effort to . . . raise the stu- dents consciousness of the social im- plications of technology . . . We think, that people learn best by doing something that is challenging where you get below the surface of the sub- ject and become deeply involved. Heventhal: The student still learns writing, terms of discipline, his- tory, (and) literary approaches from the one area. Bridgeman: I ' m not so sure I think I would like to see a broader ap- Bolz: We think, that people learn best by doing something that is challenging — where you get below the surface of the subject . . . We feel . . . that such probing has later im- plications for stimulating lifelong learning. If you gain motivation then you have all of your life to become broadly educated. Anderson: I think that ' s (In- tersesion) a waste of time. I can go to a girl ' s trade school if I want to bake or sew or ballroom dancing. Bolz: Those seven weeks are pretty intense and you need breaks if you ' re going to do your best . . . as an undergraduate it ' s fun to sit in on . . . discussions or learn things about a subject for the sheer joy of learning. Maybe you want to know a little As- tronomy . . . . . . most seniors take negli- gible courses in the C and D terms of senior year. Add to that the course equivalent of the IQP and MQP — that ' s a year ' s work. There are many technical electives that the man should have to be a good operating engineer when he gets out of here. — Bob Wag- ner proach than the more concentrated one. The IQP would be very special- ized . . . the sufficiency might be more advantageous to get a broader type ex- perience than . . . almost making a liberal arts major out of a little area without having a broader background to draw on. Wagner: We used to say the en- gineer was narrow. Now he ' s narrow in two places — he ' s narrow in his sufficiency and he ' s narrow in his par- ticular field of engineering. .

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George Hazzard Grogan: And then we went from the goal statement to the degree re- quirements. Every last one of them. We put in just those requirements that would meet the goals. And require- ments that we had before — no matter how beloved or sacred they might have been, if they didn ' t reinforce the goal, we did not put them back. Bolz: I ' ve seen a lot of graduates from typical engineering schools who pass all their courses . . . and when faced with an engineering problem don ' t know where to begin . . . can ' t put it together . . . aren ' t comfortable with open-ended problems . . . don ' t even know how to begin to attack them! So the project furnishes not only the first experience in developing problem-solving ability but it serves as a motivator to get the student to see why he she is studying basic material and how some of that material is ap- plied along with judgment and cre- ativity to solve real problems. Roadstrom: Some of them are simply tremendous, others a little less than mediocre. I think that . . . will straighten out. By its very nature working closely with students on proj- ects ... is good. Seaberg: Education has to ad- dress the problem of learning not only knowledge, but acquiring the ability to use it . . . wisely. How do we get at the problem — by gradually placing students in situations that require them to become more and more of a professional. And because the stu- dents have to select the problems, they therefore have to define their profes- sional direction, or at least the direc- tion that interests them at that time. The most important thing that hap- pens is that a student learns how to learn on his own. We call the whole thing the Major Qualifying Project. Bolz: It serves as a motivator to get the student to see why he she is studying basic material and how some of that material is applied along with judgment and creativity to solve real problems. Bridgeman: The tradition of the Senior Project was pretty well estab- lished ... it hasn ' t been that much of an innovation. Anderson: Projects are good I guess . . . My objective is to further 2! my career so it ' s an MQP . . . My ob- . . . he went out and got the money — he went to the foun- dations — of course he had something to sell. If it hadn ' t been for George Hazzard we wouldn ' t have the PLAN to- day. — Bill Roadstrum Bill Roadstrum

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Anderson: I give a good one and so I get maybe 15 kids — so it ' s not a total loss . . . Grogan: Then we had the competency Exam which was for aca- demic credibility . . . Roadstrom: People complain about the unevenness of Projects. There is a great unevenness in Compe- tency Exams . . . and it hurts students ... If he gets a problem he knows something about (or has thought about before) he ' s in luck. Even the really good student doesn ' t know ev- erything. Bridgeman: It isn ' t intended to be and we certainly don ' t try to make it a comprehensive Exam. It does serve a very useful purpose in bringing to- gether an evaluation of the overall work. The problem . . . the student doesn ' t have enough experience in that type of work. It ' s still a rather unique experience. He is given a prob- lem and sent out to collect information and put it together and draw some de- ductions from it. If you try to learn courses on that basis you would teach a methodology — a technique — but you wouldn ' t be able to cover as much ground. Wagner: Now . . . the system isn ' t working as well as it should . . . you get people who are flunking and flunking and they pass some until finally they pass enough to take the Competency, and they flunk the Competency and eventually out here at the end of D term we have all the people that have flunked. It is truly difficult to be absolute when you have all the people that have flunked. Bolz: More experience with the Competency is going to perfect it as an instrument for learning as well as evaluation and to insure that our graduates have the kind of competen- cy that professionals should have. The whole philosophical idea is not to come to this school for a point average — not to come to pass courses — but to come to really develop the competency expected of a profession- al. Anderson: I would prefer a diff- erent grading system — I ' d like more pigeon holes to put these guys in. I think a guy should stand on what he did — if he doesn ' t do it then some- body should be telling him he didn ' t do it ... In the good old days they used to have a hundred pigeon holes to put people in. Wagner: I believe that there is a B category person and 1 feel strongly about that person. It gives a person . . . something to strive for. If he can ' t get the AD he may not strive as hard. 10 . . . What the hell — the AC is very broad — I ' ll just sit back and do enough to get by . . .1 really feel that if you go out in that world out there and you flop-off you ' ll get yourself an F — you ' re not going to be an NR. I think you ' d better be trained for it here and face the music here. You ' ll never find in any one of those four booklets the words relevant, meaningful, viable and none of that educa- tional bullshit. There isn ' t any of it in there and we didn ' t use those words when we talked ... — Roy Seaberg Roy Seaburg