Questions for Rose-Hulman Student?

<p>They did send out emails...if you did not get one you may want to call admissions and make sure they have your correct email.</p>

<p>My daughter is interested in RHIT. What distinguishes the female students on campus (we haven't visited yet)? Do you have any observations/thoughts for a prospective female engineering student at RHIT?</p>

<p>M4H thanks for the correction. Still impressive. The percentage that become Presidents/CEO's is also very high too, there's a nice display with a bunch of those statistics in the alumni center at Hatfield Hall.</p>

<p>hum1m9e8r8, who did you talk with? Captain Connell or Sergeant Shackleford? Both are awesome guys. The differences between the programs: first and foremost Army is, of course, better. Duh! On a less blatantly biased note, if you get a 4-year Army ROTC scholarship it pays for absolutely everything, with the exception of the $3000 laptop package, plus a monthly allowance and money each quarter for books. The Air Force Scholarship is not as exhaustive, but is still a good deal that will pay for a great majority of your schooling.</p>

<p>Now then the actual programs, the main difference is that the Army ROTC is based here at Rose, while the Air Force ROTC is based at ISU (Indiana State University), located about 15 minutes away, so you have to travel there for you leadership lab each Tuesday, and for PT. Right now I think they're doing PT twice a week, Monday here at Rose and Thursday at ISU, so you would have to travel for that, whereas all the Army ROTC stuff is done here at Rose. PT twice a week in the morning and class and lab Wednesday afternoon. That's another thing I like more about the Army than the Air Force is that Air Force has their lab Tuesday afternoon and then class Wednesday afternoon, whereas all the Army stuff is done late Wednesday afternoon when there aren't any classes scheduled anyways. When you get to scheduling labs for your chemistry and physics classes and other classes it's nice not to have that interfering with anything.</p>

<p>As far as the class and lab goes there are some significant differences. The Air Force guys' lab consists of them learning about paper work and such. On their lab day, Tuesday, they wear their class A's (dress uniform: slacks, dress shoes, blue, short sleeve button up shirt, tie, and garrison cap), whereas we wear combat boots, BDU's (camouflage fatigues, though next year we'll probably change to the ACU's to conform with the rest of the army). Our labs most often consist of STX (Squad Tactical Exercises) Lanes, in which we go crawl around the woods and the guys who are going off to camp this summer to be evaluated get leadership practice. We basically simulate combat situations. We also occasionally have classes, on things such as first aid, searching enemies, operations orders (OP Orders), and other things that will help prepare us for camp and the Army. This year so far we've also had a lab where we went to a local gun range and shot pistols, rifles, and shotguns to our heart's content, and one lab was a Christmas party at the Colonel's house.</p>

<p>The Army does have higher physical standards also, but it's not overly difficult to meet them if you work hard at it. I've seen the Air Force doing PT and ours is definitely more intense. We also have a lot of opportunities for extracurriculars. We have a Ranger Challenge team and there's a Norwegian 30K Road march that you can do in November for an award that you can wear your entire career, one of the few things that you can do as a cadet that will carry over.</p>

<p>But I ramble on. Captain Connell was right, ROTC does not ask much of you aside from PT twice a week and class and lab. You are of course expected to work out on your own to maintain and improve your fitness level, as only twice a week won't cut it. But it's no challenge balancing them, especially freshman year. I've heard that as you go on, it gets more demanding, but they're flexible and know that you're no good to them if you don't graduate. If you're having trouble one of the sergeants has offered to hire tutors (though you don't really need to do that because of the great resource that we have in the learning center).</p>

<p>Another thing to consider is that the AFROTC scholarships are generally more competitive and to get the highest scholarship (which is just a $120 000 scholarship, I believe) it's highly recommended that you choose certain majors, I think it's computer science or meteorology or mechanical or environmental engineering, though you'd have to check the website for that. If you're awarded an AFROTC scholarship it's good at any school you go to that has a program, whereas AROTC is treated on a school-by-school basis, for example I did not receive that top AFROTC scholarship, but I received full scholarships from 3 different schools for AROTC, so that was probably the biggest factor in my decision, the fact that through the Army I had an all-expense paid education, whereas the AF did not offer that. That and I like the idea of the Army better. The AF would be cool to be a pilot, but that's very selective and commits you to 10 years active duty service. Otherwise you're just doing paper work and stuff. Well, ok, there are some other jobs, but the Army has 16 branches, each of them with their own jobs (and yes, there are some desk jobs, for example Finance or Adjutant General), but there's a big variety. You can be a tank driver, helicopter pilot, dentist, lawyer, foot soldier, logistics manager, chemical warfare officer; there's a lot of variety and choices.</p>

<p>Anyways I think I've rambled long enough, if you have more specific questions for me, feel free to drop me a PM or email at <a href="mailto:Nicholas.Kirkland@rose-hulman.edu">Nicholas.Kirkland@rose-hulman.edu</a>.</p>

<p>BTW next time you talk to Captain Connell (because I'm sure he'll call you several times before the year's out unless you flat out ask him not to), if you've found my advice helpful in making your decision, I'd appreciate it if you mentioned that Cadet Kirkland has been talking to you.</p>

<p>reasonabledad, Well, be ready to be around a bunch of guys, because as a guy, I can tell you that it's certainly different. I went home for the holidays and was startled by how many females there were everywhere! So as long as she gets along well with guys, she won't have a problem. Obviously her romantic prospects are good, but she's not going to be overwhelmed because a lot of the guys here are too busy or aren't really forward with girls (a.k.a. they don't know how to talk to them really well).</p>

<p>That said there's not much that distinguishes them. I don't really hang out with them that much because I live in an all male dorm, but I work with them in all my classes and there's several that have friends on my floor that are over here a lot that I know well. Hope that helps.</p>

<p>crazy chicken (unpolloloco) that's a tough question, because I really have very few regrets. I mean, sure, I'm up here far away from any friends and family (I'm from Georgia), but there are very few people who come in here with people they know, so it's a much better situation I think than if I had gone to say Georgia Tech, where people usually know friends from high school and such, so it's a very open social community. If you can't make friends here, you're not trying. Even the people who hole up in their room with video games in all their free time find friends who want to hole up with them and play HALO and Smash Bros all the time.</p>

<p>Academically it's everything I could want and more. The professors are very friendly and flexible. Most professors will work with you on due dates if you have a legitimate problem that you bring to them, and all the professors invite you to come into their office anytime they're not in class to get help with homework, labs, projects, or just concepts and such. I visit my various professors often and have never had an unsatisfactory experience.</p>

<p>Perhaps my individual greatest regret is that as a Chemical Engineering major I didn't take AP Physics or even the Physics placement test at the beginning of the year, and so I couldn't take the sophomore level ChemE classes (which required Physics I credit), although I am taking the sophomore chemistry and math classes, and I have a ton of humanities credit, so that makes it easier for me. I don't know why I didn't take the Physics placement test, because so far Physics I has been really easy for me, it's all stuff we went over in my high school physics class (and I only took 1 year of physics in HS). </p>

<p>That's another nice thing about the quarter system, it allows for more fine tuning. For instance, instead of taking a full year of physics, we ChemE's get all the relevant physics we need in 2 quarters. Same deal with organic chemistry and a lot of other classes. It allows you to better fine-tune your schedule. Plus if you get a bad prof or a class you don't like you're only stuck with them for 11 weeks. But we do move pretty fast, I don't know what the equivalence is, if Physics I-III covers all the material that schools on the semester system cover in Physics I and II, you'd have to check the websites and class listings. Another example is the math classes. I know that several of my friends that went to Georgia Tech only got out of 1 semester of calculus because they took AP Calc BC in HS, but here my AP credit got me into Calc III, where there it was all new material for me, whereas they covered a lot of topics that we did in HS.</p>

<p>Ok, I've ranted about stuff long enough, sorry about my absence, hope everybody had a nice holidays and is progressing well with their college decision process.</p>

<p>fyi Physics I so far, through 6 weeks has only covered basic kinematics: free fall, projectile motion, forces, friction, etc...so if you've had a good education in HS on those topics I would strongly reccomend taking that placement test when you get here in the fall.</p>