I never really thought about doing a review for a school/college until I noticed that one of the…read moretop reviews of the day was for Northeastern. Years removed from WPI, I still visit regularly and keep in touch with the many people that I became close to in my tenure at WPI. I was a student hall director/resident adviser for four years and feel like that gave me good perspective on what residents halls are worth staying at and which are worth avoiding. Basically the classic residents halls (not built within the last 5-years) break down as follows:
Morgan/Daniels - Renovated in 2000 or so mostly 2-person and 3-person rooms, this hall was original built to be two person rooms, large floors Morgan is around 50 ppl per wing, Daniels 60 per floor, good for people who like to have a lot of acquaintances. Morgan is a clear view Hall, Daniels is more broken up and usually what happens is that three/four rooms clustered together in one area on the floor in Daniels become friends while Morgan with the open Hallway gives you more options. Riley was last renovated in 1995 or so, larger rooms, 5-6 people to the room suites, these are better for people that would like to have a close nit group of friends in lieu of acquaintances, the setting forces you to be close to your roommates which can be good or bad if your personalities don't match. daniels, morgan and Riley are all located on the quad and the closest to the campus. Stoddard is 3-buildings in a quad area, all floors are divided in the center by a bathroom and common area, there are 6 rooms on either side of the bathroom, the total number of people on the floor are smaller, usually there are a high number of exchange, long distances and foreign students in these buildings because these people are too far away to look at these dorms built in 1976, I don't believe these buildings have been renovated to date. Floor set up and numbers on the floor are good for developing a tight nit community. Common area in the center of the three buildings seems like it would/could be beneficial but seems like it is rarely used.
Institute is removed from the campus in the vicinity of the fraternities, freshman assigned here usually complain about the walk to classes and the noise on weekends. The hallways are a little tight and the rooms are a little smaller, set up is akin to the combination of Morgan Hall and Stoddard in a sense. Founders was built in the mid to late 1980's i believe and has not seen a full renovation to date since being installed, larger suites than Riley with an added bonus of a common room good for groups of people going to college together that don't want to meet people outside of their group of friends.
For classes the best recommendation that anyone can give you is to go to every class, sign up early for classes online in the event that you need to change and always sign up for ADLN options for classes even if you are on campus. The reasons for these area 1. some professors have a quiz that basically just consists of taking attendance, pretty easy to score 100%, pretty stupid to get a 0%. 2. Sign up for classes early because the popular classes and professors always sign up fast. In some instances required classes that are not your entry level requirements fill up almost immediately. 3. Sign up for ADLN because you always have the option to walk in and sit down in class if you fall behind but then also get the luxury to re-watch videos or even not attend the live class if you are unavailable.
Construction in the area has been going on the for past 3-4 years which has made the already difficult parking situation on campus even more difficult, if you can avoid bringing a car onto campus and just walk or carpool with friends. Typically finding parking is easiest if you commute from WPI if you come in the morning and stay for that day. Word of warning if you are a parent, ALL visitor parking needs to be registered with Campus Police or you will be ticketed.
Like most things in life, you will get out of WPI what you put into it and is not for everyone. There are a lot of programs, organizations, clubs, sports, activities and job opportunities available but like programs any where they typically don't come looking for you, so seek them out, try and go to a lot of things at least once to get an idea if it is something you would like to do and give things a chance. No one ends up enjoying college but just hanging out in there room all the time playing video games. Terms are 7-week terms, 4 per year, each term has different scheduling constraints based on the term, ie Calc 1 is only available A-term (fall). 10-day breaks in between terms with a month long break for x-mas (winter). Not many classes offered in E-term, like wise is a 7-week schedule. Typically 3-classes are taken per term. You can take 3-educational classes and one gym class a term without getting charged extra for the extra credits (full time student tuition).
