Questions for Rose-Hulman Student?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
1

<p>Hey, I'm a freshman here at Rose and just wanted to offer my services to answer any questions you potential students might have about anything here at Rose, from class schedule to social life to the food, anything, don't be afraid. I know I was in contact with several students before I came here and it helped me a lot. Rose does a lot to help freshmen when you arrive on campus, but I know I had a lot of questions I wanted answered about this whole college thing before I came.</p>

<p>You can ask me questions here, or if it's more private, via email at <a href="mailto:kirklana@rose-hulman.edu">kirklana@rose-hulman.edu</a>.</p>

2

<p>Jr. finished his app materials about a week ago...</p>

<p>What kind of environment did you live in before going to RHIT, and was Terre Haute a shock? Jr. is unconcerned, but he's never been to a small city in the midwest before...</p>

<p>I'll pass along your email to Jr. (he doesn't do forums). Thanks for the offer.</p>

3

<p>WashDad,
I lived in a small suburb of Atlanta, GA, so it was quite a change. I'll be perfectly honest with you; Terre Haute is not a great city, it's dirty and smelly. There's a paper mill somewhere in town that makes it stink something awful. In general, it's not a place that I would choose to live after graduation.</p>

<pre><code> That said, Rose-Hulman is not in Terre Haute proper(we're an interstate exit east of downtown), so we don't really deal with that except when we go into town. Terre Haute is not the most happening place, but there's plenty to do around here. There's a a movie theater and a huge mall area with a ton of restaurants. There's a nice state park up the road a little ways, Turkey Run.

The most important factor that I found about the environment here is that Rose does plenty to keep you busy and distracted from living in a small midwest college town (I hear that in summer, when all the Rose and ISU students are gone that there's only 30,000 people here). For example, next weekend there's a trip to Chicago that is subsidized by the school, transportation and lodging are paid for for the weekend. A few weeks before Thanksgiving there was a similar trip to King's Island, which is an amusement park located near Cincinnati, Ohio. They have entertainment of sorts brought in often; comedians, jugglers, last night a hypnotist came (I was actually one of his subjects, it was pretty cool). These are all in our auditorium and free of charge.

 The other thing is that Rose has a great community. Dorms are very close-knit. We have an Open-Door Policy, which basically says that if you're in your room and not sleeping or doing homework, you leave your door open, and everyone does this, I'm not kidding you. Even the most anti-social kids, who just sit there and watch Food Network or play video games, will do so with their door open, which means that on any given night, I can walk down our hall and pop in someone's room and watch a movie or play a game. It's incredible.

 If your son has the opportunity and is interested I would strongly reccomend that he look into Operation Catapult this summer. It's an awesome 3-week program for high school students the summer after their junior year. They come to Rose and live in dorms and work on an engineering project, but they also do a lot of fun things. I did it and I strongly reccomend it. I can also answer any questions about Catapult.

 All said, being in Terre Haute is not terrible. As I said, Rose is kind of isolated. We also have a nice park out behind us that I like to go running in, Hawthorne Park, there's some lakes and some woods. Terre Haute has everything you could need, and there's plenty of things to do on weekends to entertain you within driving distance. Two things I've done since I've been here are caving down in Bloomington with some friends of mine from Catapult, and going to some amateur boxing in Indianapolis.

 I hope this answers you and your son's questions somewhat. Out of curiosity what kind of environment are you guys in now?

</code></pre>

4

<p>I'm a ChemE here, because I brought a lot of AP Credit I'm considered a sophomore, but because I didn't take AP Physics I couldn't jump start the ChemE curriculum this year, which is a fairly rigid 3-year sequence, though I do have math, chemistry and a lot of humanities credit which will help me. I can answer any questions about the freshman curriculum and especially about the Chemistry and ChemE programs.</p>

<p>I'm also on a 4-year Army ROTC scholarship here, which means that all my schooling is paid for, plus I get a monthly book allowance and book money quarterly. If you're interested that's a great deal that you can ask me about.</p>

<p>I attended Operation Catapult, which is a 3-week program for high school students the summer after their junior year. They will live in the dorms here at Rose and work in a group on an engineering project during the day and have a lot of fun. They will begin taking applications in March, here is the website:
<a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu/catapult/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rose-hulman.edu/catapult/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I live in Speed Hall, one of 3 freshman dorms on campus. I can answer any questions you have about housing/dorm life also.</p>

5

<p>My son is accepted, but we have not been able to visit yet. He wants to do Computer Engineering.</p>

<p>Can you tell me if Rose Hulman students do co-ops? If so, how many, where are they usually, and how are they scheduled into the sequence? Thanks.</p>

6

<p>Hey, I was wondering about scholarship money. I've been accepted but I'm not sure I'd be able to attend. I was wondering about grades/scores etc needed to get money. I was also wondering you guys do for fun? I know engineering is hard so what do you do to relax?</p>

7

<p>weenie:</p>

<p>Yes, co-ops and internships are a huge part of the Rose-Hulman curriculum. We have 3 career fairs per year where hundreds of recruiters are looking to hire students for full time jobs, internships, and co-ops.</p>

<p>Each program has its own program of study that incorporates a 1 quarter+summer co-op, either the summer after your sophomore or junior year. So you would take off the fall or spring quarter of your junior year and the adjacent summer to work at a company. The statistic for students is that 90% of Rose students will do a co-op or internship at some point in their time at Rose. </p>

<p>In general this is timed because the sophomore year is really the first full year of engineering classes. Freshman year is devoted to general classes like calculus, physics, chemistry, rhetoric, and humanities, whereas you start your major-specific classes your sophomore year and companies who are going to hire you for 6 months want you to be able to contribute a lot.</p>

<p>As for how many co-ops, usually just 1 because it requires you to take a quarter off, which can set you back a year of graduation unless you bring in some advanced credit and do a lot of schedule juggling. But it will actually lower the cost of your education because of the money you will make, plus it many times yields a job offer for after graduation. All in all it's an excellent opportunity.</p>

<p>In general the co-op and internships opportunities are centered around the Midwest, but that's by no means all inclusive. We have recruiters come from all around the country, and there are even several foreign exchange programs that include taking classes overseas, in Spain, Japan, Germany, and elsewhere. The Career Services office is very helpful with the whole process. They have contacts at major companies all over the place and can put you in touch with Rose alumni, which will really help you out because Rose alumni are very friendly and almost always willing to help Rose students out. Many of the recruiters at the career fair are Rose alums. That's one thing, for Homecoming we have a lot of alumni come back to Rose, go to the game, walk around campus, and do all the stuff they have planned. They are very active and it's a great network.</p>

<p>Anyways, back on topic. Like I said co-ops will usually set back graduation a little bit, but that's not a huge issue, and it's a very, very positive experience. Summer internships are also very common here, those are a little more open to freshmen (especially if you have advanced credit and have taken advanced classes), although, again the focus is more on sophomores and juniors. Those do not set you back at all and can be anywhere. And just because a company doesn't send a recruiter to campus does not mean that you can't apply for an internship there. Most companies have a section of their website where they explain their internship application process, and Career Services can help you with that.</p>

<p>Rose also has this thing called Rose-Hulman Ventures, which is a nice facility located near campus where basically Rose contracts with companies to do projects in all fields. Basically what they do is agree to develop or design some product, assign a lead engineer(who might be a full-time engineer on staff or even a professor), and then hire a staff of student interns to do the work. These interns work during the school year (no more than 10 hours a week, they work with your schedule, not the other way around) or during the summer on real projects making real money. It's just another great opportunity for students here to get good experience and make some money while in school.</p>

<p>Hope that answers your questions.</p>

<p>lukeaa:</p>

<p>As far as scholarship money, Rose is not cheap to attend. I would encourage you to pursue any outside scholarships that you can, every $500 or $1000 helps. Also consider some of the things I said in response to weenie. Internships and co-ops will help you cover some of the costs of attending.</p>

<p>Another factor to consider is this: Rose-Hulman has about a 99% job placement rate year in and year out, and an average starting salary well above the national average. If you want to; if you apply yourself in school through your studies and extracurriculars and out of school through internships and co-ops, you will be very successful after graduation. I believe the statistic is that 50% of Rose students go on to become millionaires. There's also a statistic that something around 20% are presidents or CEO's of companies and many more are executives.</p>

<p>So, what I'm saying is, a big student loan on graduating from Rose-Hulman is not the same as a big student loan when graduating from another school. I know it feels terrible borrowing that much money, and don't delude yourself, it will be a lot to pay off, but you have to consider if it is worth it to get a great education.</p>

<p>That said, I don't know your specific situation, it's certainly possible that you could receive a nice scholarship package. Almost all students recieve some kind of financial aid, and often times you can bargain for more, just by simply asking. I know a few of the bigger ones here are the Colts scholarship for an Indiana resident minority freshman and the Percopo scholarship for students from the East Coast(I believe this is defined as Washington D.C. through Maine?? have to check on that one). And I know there are others, you just have to check. The financial aid's website is <a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions/finaidandcosts.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions/finaidandcosts.htm&lt;/a> . Check there, give them a call/email, I've never had a rude experience with a Rose-Hulman employee of any kind, don't be bashful about it.</p>

<p>Of course, another option is ROTC, if you're interested I can tell you more about that, if not, no problem, I understand.</p>

<p>Hope that answers both of your questions.</p>

8

<p>Thank you nic767.</p>

<p>You're doing a great job answering questions!</p>

9

<p>Thanks for all the information. I particularly like those statistics. Thanks again for the help.</p>

10

<p>Why is it that Rose-Hulman isn't as well known as the other small engineering concentrated schools out there (i.e. Cooper Union/Olin/Harvey Mudd/RPI)?</p>

11

<p>I'm guessing it's because it is in the midwest...</p>

<p>(And I would disagree that it is not as well known as Olin. Really, outside of CC just about no one would know about Olin - they might think they do because it's a common name associated with colleges, but...)</p>

12

<p>What weenie said is true. First of all it's in the Midwest, which is not nearly as populous and prominent on the national scene as it might be if it were located in New York or California.</p>

<p>But also as weenie said, name recognition of schools like Cooper Union and Olin is not as common as we might think it is based on this board. The only people who really are familiar with them are people who live close to those schools, serious high school students that are looking into engineering, and professionals in the academic and industrial world.</p>

<p>Another big factor is that Rose-Hulman has grown a lot in the past 2 decades. We were an all-male school until 1995, and since then we've really gotten some good national recognition, as reflected by our USNWR rankings. The people in the know respect our school. Our recent growth is also reflected by the fact that about half of our living alumni have graduated since 1987. And this year's freshman class is the largest to date, they received more applications, didn't accept any more than usual, but they didn't get as many students declining as they normally do, so we actually have some overcrowding in my class (I know on the floor below me there's a 2-person room with 3 people in it, in another dorm they converted what used to be the lobby into a 5-man room, it's actually rather spacious and it's furnished with couches and a big screen TV (not sure if it is LCD or plasma). </p>

<p>Rose alumni are always spreading out across the country and companies know and respect the school and graduates. It's not the USNWR rankings that they respect, it's their experience with previous graduates that earns that respect.</p>

13

<p>Just a name recognition anecdote. . . </p>

<p>The other day, I met a woman wearing a Rose-Hulman jacket. I asked her if she had attended R-H. She said no, her son did, and that not a lot of people had heard of the school. I said I'd heard of R-H when my daughter was looking at engineering schools, and that she ended up attending one that's even less heard of, Olin. She said, "My son has a friend from high school who goes there!" </p>

<p>It's a small world, after all.</p>

14

<p>Right after Junior finished his RHIT application materials I ran into a young woman wearing a Rose-Hulman hoodie in Redmond, Washington. I asked her if she went there, and she said it was her younger brothers' school and that he was a senior there. He loves it. I'm telling you -- it was sign.</p>

15

<p>I have a couple of questions about Rose-Hulman that I hope you can answer.</p>

<p>First, what airport do you fly into? Is it Indianapolis? How long is the drive from Indianapolis (or whatever major airport you use) to Terre-Haute, and is there any public transportation to get to R-H? Do you have to have a car at R-H? How's the weather, how much snow, how cold, how bad?</p>

<p>And second--how conservative is R-H? Would a liberal from NYC stick out like a sore thumb be okay or miserable for four years? </p>

<p>Thanks for any help with these questions. I really appreciate it!</p>

16

<p>wackymother:</p>

<p>Yes, Indianapolis is the airport of choice for traveling to school. It's not a bad ride, maybe 50 minutes, from Rose. As far as public transportation, not really that I know of. I suppose you could spend a ridiculous amount of money on car service or a taxi or something, but it's easy enough to get rides from anyone who goes that way. That's one of the things your floor mates are great for.</p>

<p>On a related note, if you find it impossible to get a ride from Indy to Rose-Hulman moving in as a freshman, Rose can pick you up, but after that you're on your own. My suggestion would be to call Eric Hayes and ask him about it. Just an FYI about Erik Hayes, he's an awesome guy. His official title is the Director of Residence Life. He lives on the first floor of Speed Hall, my dorm, with his wife and toddler in a couple of dorm rooms closed off and converted to an apartment. Erik graduated from Rose about 10 years ago and loves the school so much that he makes a living living on campus and handling students basically. He's a great guy and someone very helpful to know. </p>

<p>No, I do not have my car with me here, and I'm flying home for Christmas, so my Sophomore Advisor on my floor, who lives in Michigan, is going to give me a ride to and pick me up from the airport on his way back. I haven't missed having a car that much. I mean, any night there's not food at the cafeteria (Saturdays and Sundays) group(s) from the floor are always going out somewhere and I can always ride with someone. Same deal with Wal-mart, hair cuts, anything else I want done. I can't always be picky, but it has been nice in preventing me from being a loner. Wal-mart is just more fun when you go with friends.</p>

<p>Weather-wise, it's colder for me definitely, because I'm from Georgia, and the 18 degrees that it is outside right now is about as cold as it ever got for me last winter. But it won't be any worse than it is in NYC, I've been there in winter too. We don't get crazy blizzards like you might get up by the Great Lakes, but yes, we get some snow. It's hot/warm for the first few weeks, but after that it cools down into the 50's and 60's with some cold days and some warm days until about now; now it's just cold.</p>

<p>I will definitely say that Rose-Hulman is more conservative than your average university, but that's not saying much. But would he be uncomfortable? Certainly not. There's a college democrats club and plenty of liberals to go around. And, yes, Rose-Hulman may be a small Midwestern engineering school, but we have a contingent of homosexual students who have their own club and are plenty open about. What I'm saying is, you have to work pretty hard to make yourself uncomfortable here. Nobody is going to attack you because of your political views or religious views or whatnot, unless you try to force them upon others. We pride ourselves on making a strong community here and politics do not get in the way of that. As for me, I'll admit it, I'm a fairly conservative guy, but I've never based whether or not I will like someone here on their political views. I base it on whether they like to hang out and watch movies and play video games and have fun. I know that many of my friends are liberals and that were we to get into a serious political discussion/argument that we would disagree, but that's why I don't bother with it that much, and that's a very common sentiment here.</p>

<p>But don't let me tell you that we're all just politically apathetic, it's just that we're mature enough to avoid the pointless bickering and disputes that often accompanies encounters between head-in-the-sand conservatives and liberal hippies. We have a college democrats and republicans club and they do their own little deal and have debates, but it's never personal.</p>

<p>I'll give you an example of how Rose might be different: I'm in the Army ROTC program here, and I've heard about how at a lot of other schools professors and students really hate on ROTC guys sometimes, for example at Berkley there are stories of throwing eggs at the ROTC guys who walk around in their uniform. That wouldn't be tolerated here. You could disagree with the actions of the Army, you could even disagree with Rose's support through the ROTC program, and you could write letters/articles in the school paper, and you could schedule an appointment with Dr. Jakubowski (our President, who is a friendly guy, he goes to all our football games and talks with students, which brings up another point that I'll talk about later) to ask him to change it, but ruining another student's experience wouldn't be tolerated. It's academics first at Rose-Hulman, always.</p>

<p>As far as name recognition anecdotes go my parents and grandparents have told me several since I've come here where they've run into people wearing Rose-Hulman paraphernalia and found out they know someone attending Rose, so yes they do exist!</p>

<p>Now then, back to telling about football games, these are a lot of fun, as are all our other big sporting events, volleyball, soccer, all those, we have a great fan base and a lot of fun at games. Dr. Jakubowski came from Arizona State University, a big state school, and he said that we have a lot more spirit than them. We as fans really get into it, and it's one of the really fun things to do on a weeknight or Saturday afternoon. I kind of liked the high school sports events, but stuff here is a lot more fun, as fans.</p>

17

<p>Too bad RH doesn't charter buses to get to the airport for breaks - my son's school (about the same size) does that and it is so handy. He can also catch it to get back to school. Otherwise, how do you get from the airport to school after break is over?</p>

<p>Also, does the cafeteria not offer meals on Saturday and Sunday nights?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

18

<p>Like I said you find a ride to the airport from your friends from classes and on your floor. A lot of people live in Ohio, Michigan, and in the rest of Indiana that go right through Indianapolis(after all, it is the Crossroads of America).</p>

<p>You might think this sounds difficult and kind of risky, but once you live here for a few weeks you will understand the camaraderie that you develop with your floor mates. If all else fails, I know my RA for instance, has said that if worst comes to worst that he can give you a ride or pick you up, even though that's not out his way.</p>

<p>The cafeteria has 3 meals a day M-F, lunch Saturday and Sunday, and breakfast Sunday.</p>

<p>Options for Saturday and Sunday dinner are: Subway on campus (you get $25 a quarter as part of the standard meal plan to spend there) or going out with friends from you floor or otherwise to First Wok or Taco Bell or some place nicer. Every other student at Rose is in the same boat, it's a good time to go out and relax and enjoy company, and easy enough to find a ride going where you want to go. Very, very few people are up early on Saturday's so that's not that big of a deal. I was a traditionally early riser, but your sleep will go down by at least an hour per night here at Rose, and much more, depending on your choices, so you appreciate every chance you get sleep. Naps during the day are very common when you have more than 1 period between classes.</p>

<p>You could also make your own food, each dorm has a kitchen with basic appliances and utensils and such, but, again, being practical, it's much easier and fun to go out with floor mates. I also know that several of the churches in the area have Bible studies Sunday nights for college kids where they will feed you, that's another convenient option.</p>

19

<p>how is the math department?</p>

20

<p>feel<em>the</em>force:</p>

<p>That's a very generic question, I'll do my best to answer it, if you have any more specific questions I can help you with that.</p>

<p>Here at Rose we use a program called Maple, you may or may not (more likely) be familiar with it. I'm told there's a similar program called Mathemagica. Anyways, it's a math computation computer program, or a calculator on steroids. It can do almost anything, solve huge systems of equations, plot in 3d in many coordinate systems, differentiate, integrate, all kinds of neat stuff. It's standard issue on the standard issue laptops (For those of you not familiar with the Rose's laptop program, I can talk about that too) and it's very helpful.</p>

<p>So you're going to use a lot of Maple here at Rose and your first few weeks you will curse it, it will be the bane of your existence, it and all its stupid errors and semi-colons, you'll understand when you get here.</p>

<p>The trick is, some professors emphasize the use of Maple and some don't, but the finals for the core 5 math classes that everyone takes or has AP credit for (Calculus I, II, and II and Differential Equations I and II, and I think most people take statistics also) are the same for all sections of that class each quarter, with half the final being no-Maple, no-calculator and the other half allowing the use of Maple. So having a strong grasp of Maple is VERY helpful and if you get a professor who does not emphasize the use of Maple I strongly suggest you find someone (Sophomore Advisor, floor mate, someone down in the Learning Center) who can help you learn and that you practice, because it is tricky and takes practice to become proficient to the point where you can do well on the final exam.</p>

<p>That's one aspect of math at Rose. As far as the department itself, it's very important, obviously because all your engineering and physics classes are going to rely heavily on what you learn in the math classes, and you can get a BS or a minor in Mathematics, so there are many advanced classes offered. My experience has been good. </p>

<p>Again, at Rose-Hulman you get professors who are here to teach undergraduates; their primary purpose is not to get research grants and money for the school, so teaching is their number one priority. Having only been here for a quarter and a week, my experience is limited, but my math professor last quarter was very helpful, he covered use of Maple enough that I performed well on the final and was always accessible in his office whenever I had a question about the homework or a lab report, but again, that was a common experience for me, visiting professors, and I never had a problem stopping in their office and asking them a question.</p>

<p>From what I hear, many of the professor's specialties deal with statistics, but that's not to say that you can't study other advanced fields, classes are offered in a wide variety of subjects, so your experience as a math major here will be just fine.</p>

<p>I hope this helps somewhat, again, if you can be more specific, I can offer more information.</p>

<p>Anyways, about the laptops; in case you did not know, Rose-Hulman was the first school to mandate the use of laptops, starting in 1995, when laptops were still very cutting edge. Every year since then there is a laptop committee (consisting of students and faculty) that picks a model for the incoming freshman class. Each freshman is required to purchase that laptop and the huge software package that comes with it from the school. The cost is usually around $3000 (it's a big price tag, but it's a definite deal when you consider the laptop and software that comes on it) and you will get your laptop during Freshmen Orientation.</p>

<p>This year's model has a Duo Core processor at 2.16 Ghz each, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB HD, Windows XP Pro, DVD+-RW, a 256 MB ATI graphics card, and a pretty nice widescreen. It's very cutting edge and they do that because you're (presumably) going to use this laptop for at least 4 years at Rose (after you graduate you keep it, of course), so they want it to be able to keep up with updating technology as much as possible, though after 4 years, of course it will be outdated somewhat.</p>

<p>All the academic buildings are wireless, but not the dorms. There are ethernet ports in each room and located throughout campus, in the library, in study rooms in the dorms, by printers, etc...</p>

<p>Speaking of printers, there is no cost associated with non-color printing here at Rose-Hulman, there's a printer in each dorm and throughout the academic buildings, it's really nice.</p>

<p>Ok, nice tangent there.</p>