Academics
As the 200th anniversary of upstate New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s founding approaches, “The New Polytechnic” looks to use new technologies and tools to address large scale global issues across an entire range of disciplines and perspectives. Enrollees note how quickly this has been integrated into their education, with engineering programs all including “mandatory project-based courses in each program [so students can] practice working on their teamwork and communication,” and Humanities, Arts, and Social Science classes having “a STEM component intertwined.” Other celebrated mainstays at RPI are its “rigorous classes and fair expectations” and “comfortable learning environment,” as well as the ways in which classes are scheduled in timeand location-based clusters, so as to create smaller communities and frameworks for support and leadership. There are “some truly great resources” available to undergrads, including thirty research centers and over seven hundred labs, studios, and technology spaces on campus, as well as “plenty of opportunities for tutoring and meeting new students.” In accordance with its “outstanding return on investment” and placement rate in grad schools, there is also a post-graduate development series that “helps students work towards achieving their desired career through interview preparation and other general professional skills.” Professors at RPI “are constantly looking for applications and real examples of the concepts we learn, such as companies or inventions,” and “present the material in clear and convincing ways.” They are “beyond accessible and willing to sit with you for hours to help in their office” and “devoted to giving the best education they can and [facilitating] meaningful discussions in the classroom.” Hands-on experience is highly valued, such that “a lot of professors will encourage mini field trips to see engineering principles in action” and “very few ‘lecture’ classes are truly lecture classes.”
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