Women's Technology Program
in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

WTP-EECS

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The WTP-EECS curriculum introduces students to computer science, electrical engineering, and discrete mathematics topics. The 40 WTP-EECS students are divided into 2 groups of 20 students; everyone attends each of the 3 classes daily. The classes are fast-paced, but are designed for students with no prior engineering or computer science exposure. Students are expected to spend time in the evenings working on homework and going to extra lab sessions to complete team projects with other students. WTP-EECS has a collaborative culture, where all course work is done in teams, and the emphasis is on developing multiple ways to approach and solve problems. Learning from mistakes, sharing ideas, and debugging (both circuits and code) are important parts of the learning process.

For a description of the WTP Mechanical Engineering Curriculum (a separate Track from WTP-EECS) visit the WTP-ME Track.

The WTP-EECS classes are taught by female MS/PhD graduate students from the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. These Instructors are assisted by female MIT undergraduate students who also live in the dorm as Residential Tutors. WTP is not a certified academic program and you do not receive college credit. However, we expect WTP students to to be excited about learning and to work as hard on their classes as they would if they were earning credit.

WTP-EECS Classes

Computer Science

This class introduces students to thinking computationally to solve problems and programming in Python, and is designed for those with no prior programming experience.

No previous programming experience is assumed. Topics include basic syntax, control statements, functions, and object-oriented programming. Challenging daily assignments culminate in an extensive final team project.

Electrical Engineering

Students learn college level material in digital and analog electronics through hands-on labs.Topics typically include combinational and sequential logic, transistors, counters, resistor networks, RC filters, rectification, AM radios and a special unit on semiconductor technology including the physics of transistors and illustration of semiconductor fabrication processes. In addition to the conceptual work and labs, there is an extremely demanding project schedule including a final project of the student's own choosing.

Discrete Mathematics

The mathematics curriculum covers a range of topics related to electrical engineering and computer science. Topics may include: Boolean algebra, logic, proof techniques, probability, asymptotic analysis of algorithms, recursion, vectors and matrices and linear programming. During the final class week, each student works with a partner to choose and create an in-class presentation of an advanced math topic.

Guest Speakers and Tours
MIT faculty and engineers from industry present information about their research and career paths at lunch time sessions several days each week. Tours of MIT labs or off campus facilities are also included to highlight how and where engineers work.

Special Projects

Students select and complete final team projects for their EE, CS,and Math classes. In 2012 we will again feature our capstone motor building project and competition in week 4 where student teams design and construct a DC motor.

Recommended Background

We are looking for students who are not yet certain about their future college majors, who love and excel at math and science, and who would like to explore engineering and computer science in an academically challenging environment with other talented young women to determine whether these fields might be of interest.

Applicants should have high grades in all their high school classes (predominantly A's), and be taking the most advanced classes in science and math (appropriate for their grade level) offered at their schools. Their standardized test scores for mathematics are above the 80th percentile; PSAT math scores of admitted students typically range from 60-80 with median of 72.

Although students admitted to WTP have little or no prior experience with engineering or computer science they must have the ability to handle fast-paced college-level work, and be interested in collaborative team-based learning and projects. For more information about who should apply to WTP and admissions criteria, visit our Application page.