The importance afforded to not disrupting a group, even if it means sacrificing values, adds unneeded and unhealthy stress to the average student. Once a member is shunned by a group, they are essentially lost, unlikely to find a warm welcome elsewhere. This explains why most freshman roommates tend to remain friends the entire four years. The term schedule used at WPI has a very strong impact on the culture. More and more emphasis is added on very short and very intense.
Students learn to work hard and play hard.
With such ever changing and very strict schedules as terms require, students have less flexibility to plan large events, parties, vacations, etc. No matter where students come from, what they believe, or who they think they want to be, in order to survive in the accelerated pace of WPI academics they have to adapt, evolve. No one leaves WPI without this anxious sense that life is too quick, and you just have to be faster. All students here have a desire to learn. Most choose WPI for its readily applicable project based curriculum.