A Global Approach to Engineering

By SCOTT CARLSON

Universities push their future engineers to study abroad, with limited success

Before she arrived in Namibia, Tarra Epstein had her trip planned out as precisely as a line plotted on a grid. She and three other engineering students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute had come to the South African country to help set up alternative-energy programs for poor villages, and Ms. Epstein had written up a daily schedule and plan of action for herself and her colleagues.

In time, all of