Students often work in teams on the later two projects.
The social and intellectual demands of these activities are significant, especially when added to a base of challenging courses in science, social sciences, humanities and mathematics. Preparing for these key elements of the WPI program is a primary challenge of the first year. After identifying common ground and objectives for improving the first year, they developed criteria for the design of an improved first year and they created and evaluated some sample designs. The participants' final work was agreement on a coordination and follow-through strategy. The future search conference was facilitated most effectively by Gil Steil, Jr.