Service Commitment

RPIE is a community-oriented program that is committed to offering free professional development opportunities for immigrant, refugee, and asylee engineers and those in related fields. We rely on the generous contributions of our sponsors as well as the strength of the RPIE community. To that end, to keep the program free and to help enrich its potential to support further groups of engineers, participants are asked to make a contribution through their service and expertise.

When you begin RPIE, we will ask you to identify how you plan to give back to the RPIE community. This commitment can take place before, during, or after your time in RPIE and equates roughly to 3-4 hours of work.  

Possible options include:

  • Mentoring a future participant
    • meeting with an incoming participant to help advise them on their RPIE journey and support them in setting their own professional goals
  • Leading a workshop on a technical skill
    • using your own background and expertise to develop new or supplement existing RPIE programming 
  • Participating in a panel discussion
    • returning to RPIE to discuss your experience, your job search, or other topics relating to engineering and professional development
  • Hosting a networking night or a conversation group
    • organizing and inviting participants to take place in an activity that you feel can benefit them
  • Writing a blog post or creating content for the RPIE website
    • sharing your experience or skillset in a way that can be used to reach out to and support potential RPIE applicants 

We also invite you to propose additional ideas and initiatives. Once you identify when and how you would like to make your commitment, we will work with you to implement it.

For those participants who wish to make their contribution financially, RPIE also welcomes donations in place of service. To discuss a monetary contribution, please indicate your interest on your intake form or send an email to rpie@cooper.edu. 

 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.