<p>The following was posted on another thread here:</p>
<p>"i think they're doing decent with having a few more liberal arts programs around campus..."</p>
<p>As my son is a budding liberal arts major who will be applying to colleges, and RPI is not so far away and seems to give out some dcent merit aid, this statment caught my eye.</p>
<p>Are there liberal arts majors around campus that are reputed to be good programs?
I too a quick look a few months ago and did not see much, frankly, so I'm thinking maybe I missed something?</p>
<p>RPI is primarily a tech school…like i also said…most kids go for engineering…they do have psych majors, communication majors, and electronic arts majors…but idk about how good they are…most of the other students just view them as taking the easy way out at RPI (bc the workload is very demanding for engineers at RPI)…not to take away anything from liberal arts majors…just the campus sentiment…</p>
<p>but all things considered…RPI is getting fairly well rounded for a tech school…kinda like the way MIT is…</p>
<p>My daughter is a student there. IMO for liberal arts you’re better off chosing another school. Over the past 1-2 years RPI has been cutting drastically many of their liberal arts courses and liberal arts staff. It’s become a real problem for some of the kids who are having to really search for classes to fill-in their general electives. All of the foreign languages are now gone to my understanding. My daughter had to take her writing class at night as there was no other options (not because the classes were full- they just weren’t offered).</p>
<p>I don’t see them becoming more well rounded right now. Actually less :(</p>
<p>hmmm wow…i didn’t know things were like that…at RPI now…i graduated in 2008…that’s just sad…</p>
<p>one thing i think they really need to do is focus on getting more kids to major in math and physics…along with extending a tad bit in the liberal arts, while keeping the strong focus on engineering and science…</p>
<p>anybody know why their engineering ranking dropped so much recently, even though it’s gotten a little more selective??..i posted this on another thread, but it was at 14 when i started my freshman year there…this year they’re 26…that’s kind of a serious drop IMO…</p>
<p>Mixed feelings about this. When I attended years ago, you could major in Communications or Philosopy, and there was also a German department (don’t recall if they had a major). You could take other languages at Sage. The problem is how to maintain a department that teaches mainly service courses for tech majors to fill in electives or minor concentrations. The professors in that department need some way of advancing their careers. They need graduate students, too. </p>
<p>If RPI can offer those electives through cross-registration, it’s probably more cost-effective and they have other things to worry about.</p>
<p>It was never the best place for liberal arts major. The ones offered had some tie-in with technology, and in that niche it could be a decent choice.</p>
<p>my impression is that they are trying to broaden in Liberal Arts areas that leverage their tech strenghts - thus electronic arts, cognitive psych and phil (with their relations to CS) and anthro (related to tech in general). I am not sure which ones would make it worth attemnding RPI to major in Lib Arts - DD is an arch major, so lib arts is important to us for making the whole education more well rounded.</p>
<p>For language was a sore point - they dropped them in 2008 due to the econ crisis. I hope they will restore at least some of them - engineers, archies, scientists are in international fields, and the advantages of for lang should be obvious. </p>
<p>Sage unfortunately only teaches a few for languages. No Japanese, for example.</p>