From September 20–22, members of the Rensselaer Outing Club ventured to Turtle Island for their annual Fall Lake George event, a tradition stretching over 80 years. During the trip, club members had the opportunity to hike, cliff jump, and canoe, among other activities. Organized by Lucy Naslas ’16, the member-at-large, the event was two days and two nights long, from Friday night to Sunday morning, with most activities happening on Saturday. Read more...

This Friday and Saturday is the 35th Annual Career Fair hosted by the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. If you want an internship or full time job offer this year, make sure to take advantage of the numerous opportunities around campus, which will allow you to prepare for the career fair. I, along with most other students, continue to get e-mails everyday about different companies visiting and the information sessions they are providing for interested students. Definitely go to these as it is a great chance to really learn what the company stands for and the opportunities that they may have for you. In addition, visit the Center for Career and Professional Development this week if you have the time. I just visited their Resumania event to have my resume critiqued by employers and counselors on site. I got a lot of good feedback on what to include and take out in my resume, and I feel much more confident now with how I present myself in it. Resumania will be happening this week from September 19 through September 26 between 1-3 pm. The sooner you get there the better as the line can get quite long because of the career fair’s proximity. Read more...

Let’s start this off by taking some time to discuss Rotten Tomatoes. Oftentimes, I feel like a lot of people are misinformed regarding the Rotten Tomatoes score. People will look at the tomato-meter number next to a movie and immediately use it as the be-all, end-all movie rating. That’s not how it works, though. The tomato-meter is merely an indicator of the percentage of positive reviews. That means that it aggregates the number of critics who wrote positively about a movie and compares it against the total number of reviews written for that film. Generally, this can be a good indicator of a movie’s quality; if it only has a tomato-meter of, say, 30 percent, then that means only 30 percent of critics actually gave the movie a positive review. However, things get murkier as the tomato-meter approaches the 50 percent mark; Rotten Tomatoes rates a film as “fresh” if it achieves a tomato-meter score of 60 percent or higher. A tomato-meter of less than 60 percent yields a rating of “rotten.” Now, rotten is a pretty negative term to attach to the quality of a film, but you have to put it into perspective: 50 percent of critics didn’t like it, but 50 percent of other critics did. This means the film was very divisive, a love-it or hate-it kind of movie. Films like this generally have the potential to be adored, but the tomato-meter rating of rotten will dissuade a lot of people. This is why it is important to note the average rating, a score out of ten written just below the much larger tomato-meter score. A film with a 50 percent tomato-meter score but an average rating of 6.9/10 could still be a decent flick worth watching. In the case of Getaway, a film with a 3 percent tomato-meter score and an average rating of 2.6/10, this is certainly not the case. Read more...

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers football team powered past the Castleton State Spartans to a 23-8 victory on Saturday, September 21. Riding on a record setting defense, the Engineers improved to 3-0 following this
week’s exhibition game. Read more...

Everyone’s heard of the freshman 15; it’s a common problem worldwide. College students are not the only ones who face the challenges of eating healthy. The percentage of people who are overweight has been increasing over the years, but you can do something about it by keeping yourself healthy. Read more...

For those who may not be aware, Monday, September 16 to Sunday, September 22 was restaurant week in Troy. As such, the majority of restaurants provided great deals on many popular meals, providing a delicious and cheap option for us starving college students. While many choices were available, ranging from Italian to Lebanese, we decided to stick to a more classic college dining experience with The Ale House in downtown. Read more...

On Tuesday, September 24, the Class of 2017 voted on their final choices for class president and vice president. However, the Student Senate Rules and Elections Committee has held off on releasing the results to prevent a miscount, given the close nature of the races. Read more...

The Poly would like to update our readers on several of the changes we have been talking about over the past few issues, as well as some new changes. Read more...

For its first show of the semester, EMPAC managed to net one of the biggest names in electronic music right now: Oneohtrix Point Never. The Brooklyn native has risen to fame in short time since his debut album, Returnal, on Editions Mego in 2010. He’s since been on the cover of Wire magazine, been featured in a Nine Inch Nails remix album, and contributed to the score of Sofia Coppola’s new film The Bling Ring, among other accolades. The performance at EMPAC on September 12 was a beautiful way to begin EMPAC’s semester programming. Read more...

Hello, RPI! I hope that all of you are having a great semester thus far. This past week has been very exciting for our campus as we welcomed a new member of the Rensselaer Union admin office, Holly Nelson! Holly is now the communication specialist for the Union and has hit the ground running to work on many marketing-related projects for the Union. She is joining us after working for Stevens Institute of Technology and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In order to celebrate Holly joining us, we held an open house in the Union admin office this past Friday. I was glad to see so many organizations turn out to meet her. However, if you were unable to make the event, don’t worry! There will still be many great opportunities to talk to Holly about your advertising needs. Holly is very friendly and eager to meet everyone so feel free to pop in to the admin office to say hi! Read more...

To the Editor:

Last year, we saw the launch of weR Gold, a new crowdfunding platform exclusively for RPI student groups to raise funds for specific projects. This growing initiative is an extension of weR: The Spirit of Rensselaer Society. To our great surprise, we received a large number of student submissions. Thanks to many alumni contributions, this first year marked a very successful start to the platform. weR thrilled to be moving forward with another year of crowd-funded financial support. Read more...

Tuesday, September 17

• Stacwyck Apartments Read more...

To the Editor:

I’m an RPI alumnus writing in support of those students who in past years have called for RPI to divest from the fossil fuel industry. I also write because I’m afraid. Afraid for these students and the world that they and their children will inherit. I also write because I am angry. Angry with this industry, some of the wealthiest corporations on Earth who have the power to help solve the climate crisis they have done so much to create, and from which they have profited—and continue to profit—so richly. They must use that power for the common good. Not stand in the way of solutions. Not deceive the public, deny science, and obstruct solutions. Today, as bondholders, we loan Exxon and its compatriots the capital to expand operations in the rapidly-melting Arctic, to develop more effective hydraulic fracturing technologies, and to run massive tar sand operations, to name a few. As shareholders, we profit directly from the extraction and release of carbon that’s wrecking our climate. Read more...

The 35th Annual NSBE/SHPE Career Fair is just over a week away, and we want to encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to make connections with companies from all over the country. If you haven’t already started preparing, it’s not too late. Read more...

Muddaddy Flats Quesadillary is a small locally-owned restaurant specializing in quesadillas. It’s located in downtown Troy on 409 Fulton Street. The restaurant celebrates its first anniversary this Thursday, September 12. Its menu has quesadillas specialized for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It also features a specials menu that rotates depending on the owner’s and cook’s whims. They encourage repeat customers and have a card similar to Father’s coffee card: buy ten and get the eleventh free. Read more...