High 5® has been a part of Olin College’s program for first year students for over ten years. When we were first contacted about working with them, it was said that our approach to education was very in sync with the educational direction of this emerging college for engineers founded in 1997. Little did we know at that time that Olin would establish itself as the most innovative engineering school in the country. The excerpt below is from a recent book, Thank You for Being Late  by Thomas Friedman, about living in the age of “acceleration.”

“New approaches to rapid learning are already filtering into the traditional brick-and- mortar institutions, with some radically new models popping up. Consider just one example: Olin College. In a speech, the school’s president, Richard K. Miller, explained that in 1997, the F.W. Olin Foundation established Olin College for the specific purpose of inventing a new paradigm for engineering education that prepares students to become exemplary engineering innovators ready to take on the biggest problems.

“Improvisation is what you must do constantly, it is well beyond problem-based learning or even project- based learning. You are literally marching into a forest that no one has explored in search of things you have never seen.”

High 5 is thrilled to be a part of this innovative institution. Our work with their first year students helps kick off college career with a day of thinking creatively, working cooperatively and exploring things they “have never seen.”