@Muad_dib If directed at RPI, other schools, or random other issues in your ‘back catalog’ your negative bias is apparent. Certainly you are positive on some posts. Fair enough, like everyone here you are entitled to be critical, hyperbole and all. Who knows, maybe 3 years from now, or post ARCH, I will change my opinion based on 1st hand experience, but for now, 1 year down, and very satisfied with our decision to attend RPI.
I think we should restrict our discussion to Arch. I agree with @Muad_dib that RPI is in a downward spiral. I do not understand why their past posts on other threads are relevant, they seem to be sad about RPI’s situation. With all due respect to @Spark2018 why do you like ARCH so much? What is the advantage over alternatives? What are the advantages over costs: increased fees, random time away during Jr year, discontinuity in extra-curricular activities, loss of a popular co-op term, need to live in housing one does not want to, activity fee payment for ARCH,. etc? As an alum and an academic (I won’t give more details) I have a lot of concerns. I want RPI to succeed but am very concerned for the students now that they have to go through ARCH. I am concerned about CLASS as well. I see both right now as increasing revenue for RPI by unnecessarily adding more expense onto students through Room/Board requirements. I will admit if I am proved, even partially wrong.
Greek Housing will Not Be an Option for ARCH
https://poly.rpi.edu/news/2019/07/greek-housing-for-students-during-arch-no-longer-under-consideration/
Depending upon major, I suggest that you and/or your student contact the Academic Dean of the School that hosts the major. They will take action quickly. There is no excuse for faculty not honoring appointments.
I see that the RPI Student Senate is surveying students’ opinions on ARCH.
https://surveys.union.rpi.edu/
My daughter is currently a sophomore at RPI and although the school was far from her first choice, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened. She absolutely LOVES it.
We were not fans of Arch from Day 1 mostly because of just not buying in to the whole co-op thing but also out of concern that the program is so new. That means RPI has not had the chance to build corporate connections like Stevens or Northeastern, whose programs are mature. However, I reached out to RPI with all my concerns and (unlike the other parent) got immediate answers back plus a phone call from the new person running the program. While I still think the school needs to line up more corporates that understand the timing of the program, RPI is aware of the issue and trying hard to do just that.
I found out that the fall career fair is student run and they will not let the administration get involved. That means the administration can’t invite companies. yes, it’s crazy, but I understand there’s a history here and it’s unlikely to change. But that is “supposedly” why so few companies that participated were not aware of the Arch timing and not willing to talk to anyone who wasn’t looking for a summer internship or post graduation job. The RPI person I spoke with (for nearly 45 minutes) said that the school is trying very hard to ramp up more employers for the spring career fair that is run by the administration and to educate them on the Arch and the timing. But yes, the kids need to put in effort on their own. On the upside, several non-RPI people told me that timing isn’t an issue so much out of the northeast and that companies like Google, Facebook, etc. hire interns all year long. I found that to be very encouraging particularly since my daughter is studying comp sci and applied math.
Arch is problematic for students with with less popular majors because the courses they need are not available during the summer. They can be excused from Arch, but it’s not an easy process. The administration is aware of this academic issue and is trying to fix it. The goal of the Arch is to gain work experience but still graduate in 4 years.
My overall takeaway is that the Arch is new and there are kinks that need to be worked out. The good news is that RPI hired new staff to tackle this and they are really excited about the program and really committed. I hope they can make it a success but it’s still too early to tell.
@boscol Thanks for you thoughtful, honest, and balanced post. Many find it easy to hate on Arch and RPI for reasons I can only speculate (and have in other posts) about. My son is a sophomore and RPI was at the top of his list, and to date, also loves it. It is challenging and hard, but that was expected. We were up for parents weekend, met his friends, caught a hockey game (RPI won!), toured the campus, and had a great dinner in Troy. Best of luck.
RPI could easily address several of the problems with ARCH (many of which are $ oriented), but chooses not to. These are
- eliminate the requirement to live in on-campus housing
- eliminate the meal plan requirement
- ensure that all UGS who choose to do on-campus research are paid fairly (this just requires budgeting for UG participation while grant seeking).
- allowing students to do their term away over the summer of their Jr/ Sr year so they could graduate early if they so desired.
Doing so would be a PR coup as it would show that $ had nothing to do with ARCH, it was all about the students.
@boscol @Spark2018 Thanks to both of you for thoughtful posts on your children’s experiences at RPI. My dd is applying and is excited about the opportunity for internship experience in her engineering major.
@baseballMomof3 I suggest asking the following questions
- What percentage of students got co-ops (paid) or internships (un-paid)? Too often they are lumped in the same category.
- How many or what percentage of internships could be and were continued for the summer between jr and sr year?
- What assistance is available to the student seeking a co-op? The PD series -what is it? What about during freshmen year (avoiding critical mistakes on one’s resume)? Are there people with the job of coordinating placement (most schools which require co-op have these)?
- If one does not get a co-op and does on-campus research what is the pay scale (most govt grants allow for paying undergraduates)?
- What assistance is available during the co-op term? Again most schools which require co-op offer this.
I suggest not being satisfied with generic answers.
- the overall pctg is not representative because there is a large variation based on major, GPA and other factors. Probe if this is the answer.
- everyone can try for a second co-op but the number is hard to determine some stay with the company and others change. Find out both numbers.
- we do everything we can (which means based on a finite budget) to help students but we cannot do the work for students. This is a big range. It includes resume proofing, interview placement, interview preparation etc.
- all students can access the services at any time. Find out will they help a freshman intelligently build their resume.
- we know that our first job (or any job) is not the glorious experience we fantasized. Students do not.
I hope your DD gets a great co-op but realize the term away has other options and co-op is not guaranteed.
Thanks @StudentsR1st
@StudentsR1st thank you for the suggestions on fact seeking questions.
@Boscol, I am also a parent and I have tried to keep an open mind about the ARCH program. IMO, the response you got from RPI administration was my experience with RPI CCPD on blaming everyone else and is one reason I do not have confidence with the administrators. There were a few complaints on the parents’ FB about students not getting into the Fall career fair because of dress code or due to class schedule (it happened in both Spring as well). During the family weekend, the Director of CCPD made a point that the Fall career fair was organized by students. However, based on what I read …in the past few years, the Fall Career Fairs generally attracted more employers than the Spring Career Fairs. Last year, the complaints that employers did not know about ARCH happened on BOTH Fall and Spring Career Fairs (check out the parents’ FB). This year, the Fall Career Fair listed companies who look to hire co-op, it showed student organizers are doing a good job. As much as CCPD washed their hands off the Fall Career Fair as it was not organized by them, a number of people reported success in getting job offers.
the following is the distribution of the AWAY program participants in the Fall 2019
47% - Cooperative Education or Internship
8% - Research Experience
5% - International Experience/Study Abroad/Studying at Another U.S. Institution
6% - Civic Engagement Experience
34% - Self-Designed Experience
There was less than 50% of students getting internships and I like to know the percentage of them who had help from RPI.
The large number of self-designed experiences is scary as to my knowledge there are essentially no criteria. On another board a student complains that they are just working at their non-related job to make money for school. If the program is so good this should not be allowed from an accreditation standpoint. Not allowing the SDE would put the 34% of the students in jeopardy of graduation but it is indicative that the program is not working. Further I think the coop and internship %s should be split in the spirit of full disclosure as should paid/un-paid research experience.
I believe the Self-Designed experience was just called ILE (individual learning experience) last year, and the students knew when they registered for ILE that meant they could not find anything. This year, they listed everything as ILE, say ILE co-op, ILE study abroad. @StudentsR1st I think they need to SDE as a catchall for students who can’t find anything. During the family weekend, they talked about a student would use the SDE to design an app as if it would be a big achievement but seriously does a student to use a semester to design an app.
So far, I have not seen a convincing argument from RPI where a student should (or need to) take a full course load in the summer.
@annamom I agree with you. There is no evidence that the benefits are worth the costs. In fact the evidence presented at FB show to me the costs outweigh the benefits. ARCH needs either a major restructuring with a mitigation plan or to be abolished as a well intentioned experiment that did not work. All prospective students and their parents need to critically evaluate ARCH before applying to or accepting admission to Rensselaer. Going to RPI without wanting to do ARCH is like going to RIT or Northeastern without wanting to do co-op or going to a military academy without wanting to have to serve in the armed forces.
The student newspaper just published the following article.
https://poly.rpi.edu/news/2019/11/student-survey-reveals-negative-views-of-arch/
Thanks @StudentsR1st, very useful article. The way the RPI Administration handles these findings will be critical. I’m the parent of one prospective applicant watching how this unfolds over the next couple years.
This is another article regarding Arch
https://poly.rpi.edu/news/2019/10/jackson-arch-will-not-be-optional/
Northeastern and Stevens do not force you to take a semester off. But they help you find options that may lead you to WANT to take a semester off.
My son was among the last admits NOT required to participate (optional). He chose not to participate, but did look for coops of particular interest to him. RPI already had policies in place to allow a semester off for a documented coop, already grants AP credit, transfer credit and already had summer school, all ways to make up for the coop semester and graduate on time. As it turned out, my son only ended up with summer internships, not coop in-semester offers, so if required to participate in Arch as-is, he would have had to lose out on one of his work experiences, and also waste a semester on some comparatively useless make work project.
Arch would have meaningfully made my sons time at RPI less productive. Great school, bad program design.
I agree Arch has a long way to go and the first year’s numbers for paid co-ops is not encouraging. And, as I said in my initial post, my daughter went to RPI in spite of Arch as we are not fans of co-op programs to begin with.
But, Arch is technically one semester not a 4-year commitment so I suggest to anyone who is looking at schools and considering RPI to absolutely weigh Arch into their decision but don’t let it keep you from adding RPI to your list if it’s a good match for your child.
My daughter (a sophomore) loves the school and Arch won’t change her opinion. The classes are challenging and she is getting a solid education and making life-long friends. She also just had a 2nd interview with a company from the Fall career fair that was hiring for the Arch co-op. I don’t know if she will be offered the position, but I was pleased when she told me about the interviews as very few companies at the fall career fair were “Arch oriented.” Just wanted to share that news to show it’s not completely hopeless.