<p>Is Troy really as boring and run-down as people say? I have not visited RPI but my teachers and fellow students say that it looks "like a factory churning out brains" and that grass and trees are almost nonexistant. Is this true?</p>
<p>Troy is a very small town on the side of a hill overlooking the Hudson River on the eastside. The campus is okay looking, but nothing like Upenn or Georgetown. I was just there for a day and I am not too familiar with the area. Maybe if the weather wasn't so gloomy when I was there I would have a more favorable impression. Most colleges only show the nice looking parts of their campus on the virtual tours online.</p>
<p>Troy sucks. I mean its not literally as bad as a factory churning out brains or whatever but its not great. NYC is 2 hrs away though, and Montreal too. Albany is a half hr away but I don't really know much about it. </p>
<p>There really isn't much reason to go into Troy, aside from once in a while. It's not really a place you would want to go into anyway, and the campus is pretty self contained. </p>
<p>On the campus, there is definetly grass and trees. I visited on a pretty nice day and it was really nice looking (I thought). Infact, I thought it was #2-3 out of the 10 colleges I visited as far as nice campuses go. Number 1 would have been Tufts, and Lehigh was probably #2. </p>
<p>The point is - there is a campus. It's not like a school like Drexel where its meshed with the city so your in the city whether you like it or not. RPI is more removed from Troy just because most everything you need is on campus.</p>
<p>Troy is pretty much like Albany. I have no idea why Albany is the capital of NYS based on the look of the city.</p>
<p>Troy itself is pretty small, there is a "downtown" section of about 8 or 10 blocks with shops and restaurants. Albany is larger, but the same deal, it doesn't have the big city allure that New York does. The region as a whole, however, is pretty populated, its not surrounded by trees and cornfeilds, granted they are around.</p>
<p>RPI rising sophomore here...well, as a freshman, I didn't need to go out as often as i thought I would, and when I did, I had upperclassmen friends from clubs that could drive. otherwise, you take the CDTA, the bus. The campus itself is nice, and it's easy access, so yeah, if you just stay on campus, it's pretty cool. There's a Walmart, Price Choppers, and small malls around, but if you wanna go to crossgates, which is the bigger mall, you have to take a 10-15 min drive by car, or sit in the bus for an hour. Really, all you need is basically on campus, and if you make upperclassmen friends, you should be set.</p>