This Week’s College: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York
When you think of studying in upstate New York for computer science or engineering, most people think of Cornell. But that’s not the place you should be thinking about. You should be thinking about the nation’s first university devoted to technology research: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ranked in the top 10 by CNBC of places graduates go on to make the most money, RPI is also the 6th top college for engineering and computer science in USA Today’s report on places to study computer science. Last year they spent $105 million on research in their 32 different centers on campus. And, with only 6,800 undergrads, a serious amount of that money went to their projects, ideas, and development.
Located in the small city of Troy, New York (think Charlottesville, but with a winter that is as serious as our summers are), RPI was founded by Stephen Van Rensselaer as an institution with a mission to educate students “in the application of science to the common purposes of life.” With their 200th anniversary looming in 2024, they have taken this to heart, but instead of engraving it in stone as some places do, they have made it fluid, dynamic, and relevant. RPI has retooled itself from the kind of old style, wonk engineering of the past and has risen anew, in the 21st century where data, computer science, information technology, digital media, interconnectedness, and the global issues that arise from this are at stake. The vulnerabilities of the 21st century: climate crisis, global food shortages, water and energy shortages, disease and global health issues, are all real world problems that need solutions, and require both technology and engineering to solve. RPI is up to the challenge and they want their students to be as well. Their Rensselaer Plan 2024 envisions themselves as the New Polytechnic: an institution ready to produce students educated, experienced, and effective enough to make it happen.
A unique aspect of this vision is the creation of RPI’s CLASS program. Clustered Learning, Advocacy, and Support for Students begins in their first year at Rensselaer. Guided by a series of residential assistant deans, upperclass students assistants, and a class dean, the program gives students mentoring, counsel, and individual attention as they begin their transition from high school to college. Starting with their orientation to school (SO), students are offered a variety of programs including talks, field experiences, outings, and other co-curricular experiences aimed at helping them adjust to Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond (NRB). The program does not end with the first year experience though, as many do. It continues through all four years of a student’s career at RPI, growing with them and providing new experiences commensurate with each year they are in, while supporting their needs as they progress through college. The program is intended to help create people who are able to work in diverse workplaces, with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and identities, and who can take the lead in a global society where the issues that need to be solved are interconnected and complex..
To do this RPI understands that learning must also be interconnected and complex. Rensselaer has multiple programs undergraduates can take advantage of. They have over 145 different areas of study students can take advantage of (not all of these are full BA/BS programs) which for a medium sized school is tremendous. Students interested in a BS in Web Science and Information Technology study subjects like security, web development, data privacy, and content value. They will take their core classes in technology, but they will also have to take other classes as well in their concentration which could include everything from artificial intelligence to engineering, from arts to management, from communications to medicine.
The same holds true for folks interested in environmental engineering. You’ll need a range of experiences and a variety of classes to solve multiple problems in the future. So while you have to have a full knowledge of civil engineering, courses like design, analysis, fabrication, management, etc, you’ll also have to have training in new technologies like materials, sensors, intelligent facilities, and resources. On top of that you’ll need the science background in environmental sciences taking classes in ecology, geology, and policy.
Students at Rensselaer are challenged regularly to think outside the box, investigate something that they have not considered before, and be creative in their approaches to problem solving. This is not the norm in many engineering or polytechnic schools. But it is what the New Polytechnic is striving for. And RPI is the school that built it.
About 60% of students live on campus at RPI. Freshmen must live on campus as must sophomores. By junior year you can elect to live off campus in apartments, and many folks do. There are a number of themed houses you can live in. These include Wellness House, Multicultural House, First Generation House, Pride House, Leadership House, Women in STEM House, and Vasudha House (an eco house). There is also housing provided by the fraternities and sororities. Rensselaer is about 30% Greek.
This being upstate New York, sports are big. Like many places in this area the main sport is Hockey, not football. Hockey at RPI is DI and it’s serious business (if you’re from the south and you don’t know it, blood bounces on ice.). The rest of the sports are DIII but still important and a large percentage of students at RPI are engaged in sports of some kind (intramural or club as well). For my die hard crew fans, you can row club here. They have every sport you could want and then some (capoeira, bass team, paintball, scuba, Isshinryu).
There is plenty of music and arts to enjoy at Rensselaer as well for those of you who want to continue that in college as well. The RPI Players put on multiple productions every year. There are multiple musical groups to both enjoy and to participate in. The school has an orchestra, a pep band, a chamber group, as well as an Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra, a Roots of Africa music ensemble, and a vocal group called Rensselyrics. There is also dance to enjoy and a concert choir.
What else can you do with your time? Pretty much anything. There are over 200 clubs and organizations there for students to join at RPI. You can be in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Big Brothers Big Sisters, or Habitat for Humanity. Or join the Global Medical Brigade, Quiz Bowl, Women in Computing, or Engineers without Borders. How about The Society of Women Engineers, Rensselaer Motorsport, RPI TV, Alianza Latina, NSBE, or LGBTQ Mentoring Network. Try improv with Sheer Idiocy, WRPI, Pride Alliance, Autistic Self-Advocacy, Destination Imagination, Chess Club, or the Society for Creative Anachronism. You can enjoy all that the area has to offer with the Outdoors Club. Stay indoors playing Pokémon, or planning double features for the UPAC Cinema. Join Student Government, the Panhellenic Council, or become a leader in Residence Life. Get back to earth with Terra Café who serve food grown locally, or burn off some of that energy in Rugby or Aikido.
Is RPI for you? It could be. This is a school where students think outside the box so it’s a school for people who are brave. You have to be ok with the messiness of ideas overlapping. People here study the intersections of ideas like Media, Arts, and Medicine, or Nanotechnology and Green Design. You also have to be OK being smart, and also OK with not being the smartest person in the room. In other words, you have to be sure about who you are.
Pros:
Cons:
Troy, New York
When you think of studying in upstate New York for computer science or engineering, most people think of Cornell. But that’s not the place you should be thinking about. You should be thinking about the nation’s first university devoted to technology research: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ranked in the top 10 by CNBC of places graduates go on to make the most money, RPI is also the 6th top college for engineering and computer science in USA Today’s report on places to study computer science. Last year they spent $105 million on research in their 32 different centers on campus. And, with only 6,800 undergrads, a serious amount of that money went to their projects, ideas, and development.
Located in the small city of Troy, New York (think Charlottesville, but with a winter that is as serious as our summers are), RPI was founded by Stephen Van Rensselaer as an institution with a mission to educate students “in the application of science to the common purposes of life.” With their 200th anniversary looming in 2024, they have taken this to heart, but instead of engraving it in stone as some places do, they have made it fluid, dynamic, and relevant. RPI has retooled itself from the kind of old style, wonk engineering of the past and has risen anew, in the 21st century where data, computer science, information technology, digital media, interconnectedness, and the global issues that arise from this are at stake. The vulnerabilities of the 21st century: climate crisis, global food shortages, water and energy shortages, disease and global health issues, are all real world problems that need solutions, and require both technology and engineering to solve. RPI is up to the challenge and they want their students to be as well. Their Rensselaer Plan 2024 envisions themselves as the New Polytechnic: an institution ready to produce students educated, experienced, and effective enough to make it happen.
A unique aspect of this vision is the creation of RPI’s CLASS program. Clustered Learning, Advocacy, and Support for Students begins in their first year at Rensselaer. Guided by a series of residential assistant deans, upperclass students assistants, and a class dean, the program gives students mentoring, counsel, and individual attention as they begin their transition from high school to college. Starting with their orientation to school (SO), students are offered a variety of programs including talks, field experiences, outings, and other co-curricular experiences aimed at helping them adjust to Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond (NRB). The program does not end with the first year experience though, as many do. It continues through all four years of a student’s career at RPI, growing with them and providing new experiences commensurate with each year they are in, while supporting their needs as they progress through college. The program is intended to help create people who are able to work in diverse workplaces, with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and identities, and who can take the lead in a global society where the issues that need to be solved are interconnected and complex..
To do this RPI understands that learning must also be interconnected and complex. Rensselaer has multiple programs undergraduates can take advantage of. They have over 145 different areas of study students can take advantage of (not all of these are full BA/BS programs) which for a medium sized school is tremendous. Students interested in a BS in Web Science and Information Technology study subjects like security, web development, data privacy, and content value. They will take their core classes in technology, but they will also have to take other classes as well in their concentration which could include everything from artificial intelligence to engineering, from arts to management, from communications to medicine.
The same holds true for folks interested in environmental engineering. You’ll need a range of experiences and a variety of classes to solve multiple problems in the future. So while you have to have a full knowledge of civil engineering, courses like design, analysis, fabrication, management, etc, you’ll also have to have training in new technologies like materials, sensors, intelligent facilities, and resources. On top of that you’ll need the science background in environmental sciences taking classes in ecology, geology, and policy.
Students at Rensselaer are challenged regularly to think outside the box, investigate something that they have not considered before, and be creative in their approaches to problem solving. This is not the norm in many engineering or polytechnic schools. But it is what the New Polytechnic is striving for. And RPI is the school that built it.
About 60% of students live on campus at RPI. Freshmen must live on campus as must sophomores. By junior year you can elect to live off campus in apartments, and many folks do. There are a number of themed houses you can live in. These include Wellness House, Multicultural House, First Generation House, Pride House, Leadership House, Women in STEM House, and Vasudha House (an eco house). There is also housing provided by the fraternities and sororities. Rensselaer is about 30% Greek.
This being upstate New York, sports are big. Like many places in this area the main sport is Hockey, not football. Hockey at RPI is DI and it’s serious business (if you’re from the south and you don’t know it, blood bounces on ice.). The rest of the sports are DIII but still important and a large percentage of students at RPI are engaged in sports of some kind (intramural or club as well). For my die hard crew fans, you can row club here. They have every sport you could want and then some (capoeira, bass team, paintball, scuba, Isshinryu).
There is plenty of music and arts to enjoy at Rensselaer as well for those of you who want to continue that in college as well. The RPI Players put on multiple productions every year. There are multiple musical groups to both enjoy and to participate in. The school has an orchestra, a pep band, a chamber group, as well as an Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra, a Roots of Africa music ensemble, and a vocal group called Rensselyrics. There is also dance to enjoy and a concert choir.
What else can you do with your time? Pretty much anything. There are over 200 clubs and organizations there for students to join at RPI. You can be in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Big Brothers Big Sisters, or Habitat for Humanity. Or join the Global Medical Brigade, Quiz Bowl, Women in Computing, or Engineers without Borders. How about The Society of Women Engineers, Rensselaer Motorsport, RPI TV, Alianza Latina, NSBE, or LGBTQ Mentoring Network. Try improv with Sheer Idiocy, WRPI, Pride Alliance, Autistic Self-Advocacy, Destination Imagination, Chess Club, or the Society for Creative Anachronism. You can enjoy all that the area has to offer with the Outdoors Club. Stay indoors playing Pokémon, or planning double features for the UPAC Cinema. Join Student Government, the Panhellenic Council, or become a leader in Residence Life. Get back to earth with Terra Café who serve food grown locally, or burn off some of that energy in Rugby or Aikido.
Is RPI for you? It could be. This is a school where students think outside the box so it’s a school for people who are brave. You have to be ok with the messiness of ideas overlapping. People here study the intersections of ideas like Media, Arts, and Medicine, or Nanotechnology and Green Design. You also have to be OK being smart, and also OK with not being the smartest person in the room. In other words, you have to be sure about who you are.
Pros:
- Sweet size: 6800 undergrads
- Cutting edge research and learning
- Something for everyone here
Cons:
- Private – cha ching!
- Far from here
- Winter is not a joke in Troy