The Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee of RPI has recently made some changes to the core curriculum for all undergraduate students. The subjects included in the additions range from biology to entrepreneurship. Some are already committed, while others are still on the table or only rumored of. What all of these changes have in common is that they will affect every student, past and present. Even if they don’t change your 4-year plan, they will affect the type of graduate that RPI produces, and the reputation of the institute in the eyes of the world.
One of the most attractive things about this school that helped me form my decision to attend was the streamlined, technical, and professionally oriented curriculum. Yes, my mother wanted to make sure that I had my share of reading and writing, but the already instated humanities and social science requirements more than satisfied the necessity. Having a strong understanding of the scientific method has been a pillar of the Rensselaer mission since it was founded, so a science requirement is also well understood.
I have already been forced into taking a course that I have no interest in over a course relevant to my major. Since computer science requires that I take sciences from two separate schools, I’ve been locked out of taking a course I really wanted to take. If I were further forced into another one of these courses such as biology, I would be even more upset. It is also proposed that a “culminating experience” be added to every major, and also an emphasis on entrepreneurship. My second major, information technology, already incorporates both these, and understandably so. However, I can’t see a math major starting a door-to-door iterated integration service, and see no reason in wasting their expensive credits on irrelevant material.
Furthermore, we all attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, not Rensselaer University. Students know this before they apply, and employers know this before they hire. RPI is known to produce extremely talented and knowledgeable professionals of technical fields, not well rounded jacks-of-all-trades. The coming changes and propositions to our core curriculum are very well intended, but I feel they are misplaced, and will only result in dulling RPI’s cutting edge in today’s modern world.
