This week's Student Senate meeting started off with School of Management Associate Professor Jeff Durgee and Director of Auxiliary, Parking, and Transportation Services Alexandre da Silva giving updates. Durgee explained that he wanted to attend the meeting as a representative from the Faculty Senate in order to facilitate communication between the two bodies and was "just here to see what is going on." Read more...
One of the greatest opportunities I’ve had as a student here at RPI is being a student employee in the Rensselaer Union. It’s one of the best opportunities you have as a current student to gain some of the intangible experience you need in order to be a competitive applicant for jobs. RPI imparts onto you, in one way or another, the technical knowledge for your chosen career in the many hours spent in and outside the classroom, but you need more than just technical knowledge in order to be successful in the world outside RPI. One of the awesome things about working for the Union is the fact that there are ample opportunities to hone your leadership skills. Most of the student employee teams in the Union are not directly led by professional full-time staff, but rather by a student coordinator (with ample professional staff guidance and advice of course). I quickly learned how to balance many different requests and get everything done as efficiently as possible, which is something that best comes with experience. Read more...
Imagine falling into an ocean of synths. Out of nowhere, a crooning voice comes through the dilapidated fog. In kicks a slinking alt-pop beat, complete with raw, unfiltered lyrics. Read more...
Uproar burst forth from the fans in the Houston Field House Sunday evening, as the Rensselaer men's ice hockey team devastated McGill University in the season exhibition opener with a 3-0 clean sweep. Read more...
President of the Boxing Club Liam McEneaney ’17 presented in the Rensselaer Union Executive Board meeting to request a budget for club equipment and a larger practice space. The Boxing Club was made a Union-recognized organization on December 11, 2015, and has since gained a large membership. They are currently looking at a consistent 30 members who each pay 20 dollars in club dues to their coach’s salary. With the majority of the finances going towards this goal, they are left with little to cover the cost of necessary equipment. Following a 15-2-1 vote, the E-Board officially recognized the RPI Boxing Club as Union funded, and approved a starter budget of $200. Read more...
What is more important to you: what you receive, or what you give? How you feel, or how you make another feel? What you learn, or what you help another learn? As a person who takes more out of life from helping others than from helping himself, I believe that the less you take for yourself and the more you give of yourself, the more full you will feel as a person. My point may seem like an anomaly, so allow me to elaborate using this example from my life. Read more...
On Saturday, October 8, from 3–5 pm, the Second Annual SustainAffinity Panel and Reception will take place in Russell Sage Laboratory 3303 with three panelists who are leaders in diverse environmental fields: Dr. Benjamin Cohen ’11, Dr. Andrew T. Jay ’84, and Dr. Mary Ellen Mallia ’06. The panelists will talk about their experiences working on sustainable solutions and give advice about paths current students and fellow alumni might take in environmental fields. Audience questions will be accepted, and, after the panel, there will be opportunities for networking as well as refreshments. Read more...
It was a successful weekend of tennis for Rensselaer. The women's team travelled to State University of New York Geneseo to play their second dual match of the season on Saturday. The Engineers beat the home team 7–2, which brought the team a 2–0 winning record. Geneseo had been undefeated before facing RPI. In No. 3 doubles, the doubles team of sophomores Erica Frommer and Andrea Valencia gave the Engineers the lead after winning their match 8–1. Later, in No. 1 doubles, the team of freshman Allie Kallish and junior Melanie Frank won their match 8–5, further broadening RPI's lead. Finally, in No. 2 doubles, the duo of freshman Tess Lubin and sophomore Mailani Neal won their match 8–6, giving the Engineers a 3–0 lead. In singles, Kallish, Frommer, Valencia and Neal all won their matches in straight sets: 6–1, 6–1; 6–4, 6–1; 6–3, 6–0; and 6–0, 6–0, respectively. The Knights of SUNY Geneseo defeated the Engineers in No. 2 and No. 3 singles; Lubin fell to Pornpitaksuk 6–7 (3), 2–6, while Frank, fell to Susko 2–6, 0–6. Despite those defeats, RPI came out on top with an overall 7–2 score. Next weekend, the lady Engineers will travel to play at the Connecticut College Tournament. Read more...
The National Society of Black Engineers/Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Career Fair took place on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1. Companies including Amazon, Deloitte, Exxon Mobil, GE, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Google, IBM, and Stryker, among others, set up in the Armory in hopes of finding capable Rensselaer students they would like to work with. Because an opportunity like this does not come every day, RPI students prepared to the best of their abilities. There were many information sessions, mock interviews, and resume building workshops to help students prepare for the career fair. Students felt the pressure to have the perfect resume, to give the perfect pitch, and give the perfect first impression. Read more...
In light of the National Society of Black Engineers/Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Career Fair last Friday and Saturday, the Editorial Board of The Polytechnic would like to offer some suggestions for future years. Read more...
Released on September 30, Regina Spektor’s new album Remember Us To Life has caught critical attention for its careful and eccentric take on modern pop music. While Spektor is widely known for her indie hits “Samson” and “Fidelity,” this new album serves as her first release since “What We Saw From The Cheap Seats” in 2011. Within the 11 songs on Remember Us To Life, Spektor manages to explore themes in the realm of corporate America and hookup culture with an acute eye and almost painfully well-constructed songwriting. Rolling Stone Magazine described the release as “a balancing act of the familiar and far-out,” and credits Spektor for her originality after nearly 20 years in the music industry. Read more...
Honored as the Liberty League Men’s Cross Country Performer of the Week following his first place victory at the Saratoga Invitational on Saturday, senior Ben Fazio finished the men’s 8000 meter race ahead of 171 competitors in a time of 25:11.3, averaging 5:05 per mile. This is the fifth time in his collegiate career Fazio has been awarded the title. Read more...
Between the NSBE/SHPE Career Fair last weekend, and Alumni Weekend/Homecoming this weekend, there have been way more alumni around recently than normally, which is a pretty good thing overall. A lot of the most interesting things I’ve learned about RPI and its history, ranging from my favorite useless trivia fact about the basement of the Union technically being a bomb shelter to explanations of why certain policies and structures are the way they are, have come from random conversations with alumni. Who I’m probably going to just call alums for the rest of this, because I’m really not bothered to remember how to conjugate Latin properly. Read more...
“Words were different when they lived inside you.” Read more...
The Rensselaer women’s ice hockey team faced off against the Ohio State Buckeyes on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1. The Engineers lost 4–1 and 2–0, respectively. Read more...
Hello again RPI! I hope that all of you had an exciting and fruitful weekend at the 38th annual NSBE/SHPE Career Fair. I found it to be a great reminder of why we are all here at RPI—of course to learn, understand, and gain the capacity to affect change in the world around us, but also to further our own long-term goals and aspirations. I have always felt that, while the career fair may not have yielded the results that I wanted every year, it was like getting a glimpse of the finish line and made me push even harder in the pursuit of my own goals and aspirations. In light of what the career fair offers to students every year, let’s not forget what role the Rensselaer Union plays in our education and our development as the scholars, leaders, and innovators of the future. Read more...
This semester, Rensselaer has seen an unprecedented uptick in bicycle thefts. According to the crime logs kept by the Department of Public Safety, that are available at https://poly.rpi.edu/s/xwamf, 18 bicycle thefts have been reported so far in August and September. This is an increase from four and seven bicycle thefts in the same months of 2014 and 2015, respectively. Read more...
Rensselaer is a school known for engineering, computer science, and the STEM-related fields. This, however, does not mean that other majors do not exist. Having all of these majors in different types of engineering and science gives so much opportunity for disciplines to mix, work together, and make amazing discoveries or advances in research. I am a dual major now, but when I started here my sole major was Electronic Media, Arts, and Communication (better known as EMAC), and yes, that exists here. Read more...
With the realization that Fall has officially started, and the fact that I have a little less than three months on this campus, I wanted to be able to enjoy Troy’s wonderful weather and myriad of events during the Fall season. On September 2, Transport Troy hosted its annual Collar City Ramble on Saturday, October 2, an event that encourages residents to explore Troy in unconventional ways. The Ramble aims to “build a trail for multimodal transportation,” as well as “connect significant places in Troy to neighboring communities, such as schools, libraries, cultural sites and transportation hubs.” The ramble was all around Troy, from kayaking down the Hudson, to hiking trails in the many parks of Troy, to a bike tour down the length of the city. A shuttle stopped by at River and Front, next to the Farmers’ market, so participants could move from one event to the next. Read more...
