Graduating from RPI Comp Sci, ask me anything

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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<p>Looking back at the options I had in 2010, I'm still happy I chose RPI :) There were ups and downs and all-arounds. Now it's over and I'd be happy to do my best answering any questions about the university.</p>

<p>I know plenty about the Computer Science major and classes, RPI's study-abroad program (I studied at the Technical University of Munich in Germany), campus life, internships & recruiting, and transferring courses.</p>

<p>These are the classes I've taken at RPI:</p>

<p>CS DATA STRUCTURES
CREATIVE WRITING: FICTION
CALCULUS II
PHYSICS I
COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
INTRODUCTORY ECONOMICS
INTRO DISCRETE STRUCTURES
SCIENCE,TECH AND SOCIETY
INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO ALGORITHMS
MULTIVAR CALC & MATRIX ALGEBRA
INTRO DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
TOUR OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
PROGRAMMING IN JAVA
MODELS OF COMPUTATION
ADVANCED CALCULUS
GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
DATABASE MINING
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
INTRO TO LITERATURE
PHYSICS II
EARTH AND SKY
DATABASE SYSTEMS
SOFTWARE DESIGN & DOCUMENTATION
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
OPERATING SYSTEMS</p>

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<p>Thanks for doing this!</p>

<p>Where else did you get accepted? What were the ups and downs and why do you feel that RPI was still the best choice given your options?</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

3

<p>My daughter and i visited for the engineering open house
I was so impressed
She was just accepted at wpi and northeastern
I think the academics are stronger at rpi.</p>

<p>Did you start as a cs major?</p>

<p>I think it may be better to start as engineering undecided for the first year for flexibility</p>

<p>What do you think of the support for first year students?</p>

4

<p>eyemgh,</p>

<p>No problem :)</p>

<p>I was also accepted at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of New Hampshire, and a bit further away, Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Institute of Technology. My decision was largely based on financial aid. That ruled out Carnegie Mellon right away, and made WPI less attractive. Georgia Institute of Technology gave me great financial aid, but I’m an avid skiier and didn’t want to be that far from home. WPI seemed very friendly and homey to me, and I felt very comfortable visiting, but academically it seemed that RPI had the edge and is somewhat better known, and they gave me more aid. RIT I didn’t really consider that strongly because I had never visited and from what I knew about it (word of mouth through the grapevine, mostly) it was less happy than WPI and weaker academically than RPI. </p>

<p>Most of the ups and downs were related to extra-curriculars, friendships, and that kind of thing, not academics. My room mate in Freshman year and I got along great, and he was more outgoing than I so I ended up meeting a lot of other great people through him. We lived in BARH and, although it has a bad reputation for being somewhat far from campus, I can’t imagine having a better dorm experience. We knew almost everyone in our wing, hung out in each others’ rooms all the time, got crushes on the ladies upstairs. The other residence halls were a bit far away so BARH tends to be a close-knit community. I remained on waving/talking terms with almost everyone in our wing of the building for the rest of my time at RPI. </p>

<p>Another big up was getting spectacularly lucky in being able to get a good paying summer internship for the summer after my freshman year with National Instruments in Austin, TX. They do a good deal of recruiting at RPI and didn’t mind that I was only a freshman. They told me that they have always had good luck with RPI students.</p>

<p>I never really had a bad professor at RPI. I had many average professors, a good deal of good professors, and a couple of great professors, but never an honestly bad one.</p>

<p>As far as downs: although I did end up spending a semester in Germany and I had a great time, that took quite a bit of time and initiative to get arranged because RPI’s study-abroad program is not that strong or well-developed. I had to choose all of my classes in Germany in advance and then get them approved by the “transfer credit coordinators” of different RPI departments. Sometimes the syllabuses weren’t enough for them to make an approval decision and I had to do some back and forth with the university in Germany to clarify course material and expectations. All in all it was just a tiring experience.</p>

<p>That reminds me of another down, the total lack of foreign language instruction at RPI. During my time at RPI there was no foreign language instruction whatsoever. But I’ve seen emails recently that they are starting a Chinese program soon. </p>

<p>There is, however, a foreign language club at RPI with enough members to have discussion groups in German, Spanish, and French. They’re a very nice bunch, too. As I was preparing to go to Germany, they happened to have a German exchange student in the club who was helping people with German.</p>

<p>The surrounding area, the capital district, is not really that exciting, but it’s also not as bad as most people think, I’d say. Downtown Troy is very quaint, and I always felt safe there. The city is steeped in history, but as far as finding the fun things a college student looks for, it’s not very good.</p>

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<p>Thanks Randwulf!</p>

<p>Were from the West, but took the obligatory trip out East to visit. We toured the schools my son thought might be a good fit, Olin, Brown, Dartmouth, UVM, Bucknell, Lehigh and Lafayette. He added WPI on a whim. Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped by RPI on the weekend. </p>

<p>Of all those, WPI was the only Eastern survivor. He liked the vibe on campus, the 7 week system, the project based learning and the foreign exchange program. After receiving the Rensselaer Medal, he decided to apply to RPI too, with the idea of making a formal visit if he got accepted.</p>

<p>The additional survivors are Oregon State (accepted), Case (accepted with good merit aid), Colorado State and Cal Poly (no EA for either, results to follow).</p>

<p>He too is an avid skier and would likely race, time permitting, for either WPI or RPI.</p>

<p>He’s also pretty deep into Mandarin, maybe deep enough that he could just continue by speaking with other students and/or professors. </p>

<p>Were money not part of the equation, would you have still chosen RPI? How frequently have you been able to ski? Did the work load feel oppressive?</p>

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<p>marymac,</p>

<p>WPI and Northeastern are also great schools. I tend to agree that academically, RPI is probably the best, but I’m sure some would argue otherwise.</p>

<p>Yes, I started as a CS major and stuck with it to the end.</p>

<p>I don’t know a ton about the engineering curriculum, but I think it’s probably more or less the same for all freshman engineering majors. She’ll probably have either Physics or Chemistry, then Intro to Engineering Analysis, Calc I or II, and a free elective. So if she’s not really sure about what field of engineering she wants to enter, I think it will be no problem to enter undecided and decide during freshman year. She would probably also be fine if she makes a decision now and then decides she wants to change to a different engineering major in freshman year.</p>

<p>I thought the support for freshman students was pretty good both socially and academically. Your daughter will have the option of attending a Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond session right before the start of the semester. These sessions include options such as camping, service projects (like habitat for humanity), and some art-related options if I remember correctly. It’s a very easy way to meet people and then when the semester starts you already have some friends right out of the gate. I went to the Camp Sloan session. It was basically a three or four day long summer camp with RPI students. It ended up raining most of the weekend, but huddling together in a cold tent playing cards with other freshman was a great way to build some friendships anyways :wink: Once the semester actually starts, there are some further school-sponsored events like barbeques and parties. After the first month or so of the first semester of freshman year, there are no longer very many such events.</p>

<p>When students are doing poorly in their classes, professors send an alert to the Advising and Learning Assistance Center (ALAC, [Advising</a> & Learning Assistance Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute](<a href=“Advising & Learning Assistance Center | RPI INFO”>Advising & Learning Assistance Center | RPI INFO)). ALAC then contacts the student and invites him or her to take advantage of its services which include tutoring as well as advising (regarding time management, note-taking skills, and such). I never used these services personally, but I know a lot of people did, even people who were doing fine in their classes, because the tutoring is supposedly very helpful for homework assignments and such, often times better than the help you can get at a professor’s office hours (which are sometimes crowded). ALAC has plenty of tutoring resources for the major freshman classes. And according to their site, a student who is struggling can also be assigned a faculty mentor to keep a closer eye on their progress and help them overcome their difficulties. I haven’t heard any reviews on that service, however.</p>

<p>Every student also has an advisor (whom they share with a few dozen other students). The advisor is mostly there to help the student create a course schedule that will let them achieve their goals and graduate on time. Since graduation requirements are so complicated, that’s pretty helpful.</p>

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<p>eyemgh,</p>

<p>I think all of those things you mentioned are indeed things that WPI has over RPI. It seems that he has a good idea of the relative advantages of WPI.</p>

<p>Whether I would have chosen RPI or WPI had money not been an issue is a really hard question! I had the impression that I would be happier at WPI, but that I would have better opportunities with an RPI education. Those were both very important to me. In the event, I was happier at RPI than I expected to be and got the great opportunities I expected. Had I gone to WPI, would I have been even happier there and gotten better than expected opportunities? Possibly, but it’s just so hard to say. In any case, back when I was making this decision, I don’t remember thinking about the “if money weren’t an issue” scenario so I really don’t know what I would have done back then if I had won the Megabucks.</p>

<p>I didn’t ski as much around RPI as I had expected, because the skiing around my hometown, just below the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is just plain superior, so I did most of my skiing when I went home for breaks and weekends. Around RPI I only went skiing a couple of times per month in the winter and I left the club after my first semester.</p>

<p>The workload came in bursts. Occasionally it felt oppressive, then it would lighten up for a bit. With that kind of pattern, I avoided being generally overworked or overstressed. I remember in freshman year I got into the pattern of working almost all day on Sunday and Thursday and then the remaining days were relatively light. This last semester though was pretty oppressive. I had to take 20 credits to graduate, including the capstone CS class, meanwhile I was flying around and doing an onsite job interview every week. That was pretty awful, really. In general, RPI’s workload is quite high, but most students seem well able to find a good balance. I’ve heard that the average workweek at RPI is around 50-60 hours, but a college student work-hour has a lot of goofing off mixed in. If a student really concentrates on their work I think they could get great marks by working many fewer hours.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much! Good luck on the job quest.</p>

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<p>Hey, thanks so much, Randwulf!</p>

<p>I’ve applied ED to RPI.</p>

<p>How are they arts subjects in RPI? I’m also applying for a CS major, but I’d also really like to study other things; maybe psychology, design, etc. But of course, CS is my main goal. </p>

<p>How good or bad is Troy? Do you go to Albany often? Is it accessible?</p>

<p>Is the weather a deal breaker, for someone like me, who’s lived in California for 13 years, and now in India, for 5? :stuck_out_tongue: I’m sure it’ll be really cold, correct? That’s probably a minor hurdle, though.</p>

<p>How was the campus life? I’m gonna ask the obvious question - male female ratio? :stuck_out_tongue: Sorry, I had to ask. :P</p>

<p>Thanks so much, and good luck for your future!</p>

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<p>SahilC,</p>

<p>Unless you count writing, I’ve never taken an arts course at RPI. There are many arts courses though, you can check the list out here: [Courses</a> - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Acalog ACMS?](<a href=“Courses - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Acalog ACMS™”>Courses - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Acalog ACMS™) . Mostly these courses are just there for the engineers and scientists to “expand their horizons” and are thus pretty laid-back and easy. I’ve heard some are pretty serious though, especially as you get to the 4000 level.</p>

<p>RPI has a wide psychology offering (prefix: PSYC) and these courses also tend to be pretty light. I found Psychology classes to be an interesting and laid-back break from all of my math and CS classes. As for design, I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but check out the arts catalogue and see what’s there. There are lots of architectural design classes too (ARCH), but I’m not sure how accessible they are if you’re not an architecture major. The architecture program is relatively insular (and extremely demanding).</p>

<p>Troy is just not very exciting. It’s a small, rust belt city that’s long past its prime. However, I found it to be safe enough, and it actually has a very good looking historic district which is pretty cool. But you’re not going to see many concerts or parties or anything like that. They used to have Revolution Hall and some good acts would come through, but not anymore. It doesn’t even have a theater. Albany is a bit better just because it’s bigger and I went there frequently for movies and such. It’s about 10-15 minutes by car and 45 minutes or so with the CDTA buses (which, at least, is free with your student ID). There are at least two major malls, two or three clubs, every type of store you’ll need, and SUNY Albany is there which has a much better party scene than RPI if you’re into that kind of thing. Still, Albany doesn’t really have the vibe of a college town and noone exciting ever comes to town. There is Amtrak service from Albany to NYC in 2.5 hours so it is possible to swing down to NYC for a day to see a concert or something.</p>

<p>It gets pretty cold in Troy. Whether that’s a dealbreaker for you depends on how much you value warm weather. I knew some students from Texas, Florida, and California, and they didn’t complain much. The one who complained the most was this guy from New Jersey where it’s not even that much warmer than Troy, lol. The coldest I’ve seen it get was a nice, cozy -11, and it was windy, too, so we had to wrap our faces up pretty tight or else run a real risk of getting frostbite. It’s also pretty cloudy during Fall semester but lightens up in the Spring. Everyone’s always sad to see September go and happy to see May come. In between, the weather is not very nice, although a New England (close enough to New England) Autumn is something everyone should experience at least once in their life…</p>

<p>The male/female ratio is gradually improving. When I started at RPI I believe it was 27% female. Now I’d guess that it’s around 35% or so. Whatever it is, RPI is still very male-dominated. Frankly though, if you’re looking to meet girls, the competition is not all that fierce because half the guys don’t bother and the girls aren’t very proactive, themselves. Even more frankly, if you’re going to college to meet girls, don’t go to RPI! Lol. Campus life is pretty active, I remember us being high on some “more to do on campus” list in Newsweek, whatever that’s worth. There are more than 200 student organizations and if you get involved with the ones that interest you you’ll always have something to do. There’s an event calendar that can give you some hints when you’re looking for something to do ( [Rensselaer</a> Events Calendar](<a href=“http://events.rpi.edu/main/showMainEnd.rdo]Rensselaer”>http://events.rpi.edu/main/showMainEnd.rdo) ) but that doesn’t include most club activities.</p>

<p>Thanks and good luck to you too!</p>

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<p>@Randwulf Is there any differences between the Candidate’s Choice Application and the Commonapp when I apply to RPI?</p>

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<p>Dzoikoan96,</p>

<p>I don’t know the answer to that personally, but looking around I found this on RPI’s website:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>And a few threads here on CC, like this one:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rensselaer-polytechnic-institute/1529062-candidates-choice-application.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rensselaer-polytechnic-institute/1529062-candidates-choice-application.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In that thread gemmsha13 emailed RPI admissions and got this response:</p>

<p>

</p>

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