About the Company
The Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education equips undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty with the knowledge, mentoring and resources needed to conceive and execute projects of personal and societal impact.
Keller does so by offering educational opportunities that bridge engineering and the liberal arts and help shape rewarding career paths. This includes curricular and co-curricular programs organized around design, design thinking, entrepreneurship and innovative teaching, at the intersection of technology and society.
Internship Description
The Tiger Challenge program tackles wicked societal issues with a dynamic network of student teams, community partners, and advisors. Utilizing design thinking methodologies and mindsets, which emphasize empathy, creativity, and a bias towards action, teams begin by dissecting the complexities of the challenge before moving onto creating an innovative solution with a positive, lasting impact.
Tiger Challenge offers an intensive co-curricular summer program working with community partners as well as an academic year program for credit. Summer highlights all phases from contextualization through implementation in a real-world local community setting.
“Design thinking offers the distinctive opportunity to extract knowledge from the world around you and put something of your own making back into it. As Princeton students, we are often striving for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that shape our world. In our courses, we explore subjects in order to arrive at a new level of knowledge—to reach new insights. Tiger Challenge pushes students to move beyond the realm of insights and into an unfamiliar realm, that of action. Through its design thinking approach, I have learned how to think critically about my environment and center real people’s experiences in the projects I introduce into the world.”
“From my experience in Tiger Challenge, I learned that creativity involves much more than just sitting on a chair and waiting for a brilliant idea to pop into my head—it entails connecting the dots and maybe a little bit of messing around with what we have to generate that initial spark. I believe that this insight will benefit me regardless of what I end up doing in the future, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to be a part of the cohort in this past year.”
Summer Benefits
- Participants will learn how to practice human-centered design and design thinking in a real-life project
- Assignment of well-established community partners, plus Princeton advisor
- Targeted workshops and lectures open only to Tiger Challenge participants
- Networking opportunities with social innovators, designers, and consultants
- $5,000 stipend
- Campus housing and meal plan
- Summer internship counts towards Entrepreneurship (ENT) certificate practicum
- End-of-summer presentation to the public
- Participate in Princeton Research Day
Eligibility
- Currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate Princeton University students at the time of application
- Graduate students must provide written approval from their faculty advisor prior to committing to the program
- All majors are welcomed and encouraged
- I-9 not required
Key Dates
- February 19, 2024: Application opens
- March 15, 2024: Application closes
- March 19-21, 2024: Interviews conducted
- March 25, 2024: Offers extended
- March 29, 2024: Commitment deadline
- April 1, 2024: Cohort finalized
- Early-May, 2024: Welcome / orientation
- Early June 2024: Summer Program Kickoff Barbecue
- Late July - early August, 2024: End-of-summer presentations
Application Deadline: March 15, 2024 at 11:59 pm EST