WORCESTER, MA — Nicholas Szuba, a member of the class of 2025 majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), recently completed a senior thesis that is required of all graduating seniors as part of the university’s distinctive project-based educational experience. Nicholas’s Major Qualifying Project (MQP), a research-driven, professional-level project that challenges students to solve the kinds of problems they would typically encounter in their professional discipline, was titled “Sound Down: Targeted Noise Reduction in Indoor Environments.”

“It’s inspiring to see the creativity and skills that our students bring to these projects, as well as the professionalism with which they present their research,” says Arne Gericke, interim dean of undergraduate studies and director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. “Their experience managing a major project like this-including identifying a problem and researching all of the implications and possible solutions while also managing team dynamics over an extended period of several months, sets them up well for success not only in their first jobs after graduation but throughout their careers.”

On Friday, May 16, Nicholas Szuba, who majored in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was bestowed a bachelor’s degree at WPI’s 156th Commencement. Nearly 1,300 undergraduate degrees were awarded during the ceremony.

President Grace J. Wang, PhD, and Board of Trustees Chair William Fitzgerald presided over the exercises.

Wang told members of the Class of 2025 they are entering a changing world filled with competing visions for how to solve challenges and advance society. But, she said, along with knowledge and technical competence in their chosen fields of study, WPI graduates have been equipped with the ability to think critically, to be resilient, to work in teams, and to do it all with a sense of ethics and global responsibility.

“Outside these walls today is a world that needs you,” Wang said. “Not just because of what you have learned to do in your chosen field, but because of who you are, and also because of the leadership qualities you built at WPI.”

Delivering the undergraduate Commencement address, Michelle Gass ’90, president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co., reflected on her journey from student to global business leader to inspire the Class of 2025. Gass said she’s often asked how a chemical engineering graduate from WPI became CEO of one of the most iconic apparel companies in the world. The answer, she told the graduates, lies in a handful of guiding principles she started refining in her years on the WPI campus.

“I’ve realized that to the extent I’ve been successful and able to engineer the kind of life I wanted for myself and my family, it’s largely because I learned how to approach problems and moments intentionally and productively, while keeping real people in mind at all times,” Gass said.

Gass and Mark Fuller, chair and treasurer of the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, a significant supporter of WPI, received honorary degrees as part of the ceremony.

Student speaker Dhespina Zhidro, a biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering double major, reminded fellow graduates about the community they formed for themselves, shaped by a collective experience that included struggle, doubt, and, ultimately, achievement.

“WPI has given us more than an education,” Zhidro said. “It has given us a blueprint for how to live, how to lead, create meaningful change, and leave every place we enter better than we found it.”