Being a good graduate student, I don’t read The Polytechnic very often but instead work all the time. However, when I was bored today at lunch I picked up a copy of the paper to see if there was anything interesting I should know about in an attempt to be a more informed Rensselaer citizen. Then I was greeted with almost half the paper devoted to the possible (underlined, bolded and blown up to size 68 font) elimination of the environmental engineering program. What’s that about?

Frankly, I’m indifferent about the situation. It’s not like they’re making the current undergrads pack up their bags and go home without a degree. A bachelor’s in civil engineering with an environmental engineering concentration is perfectly acceptable in jobs and grad schools. If they have to cut the program and reallocate faculty and students to another department, then so be it.

I don’t see why streamlining the program offerings a bit can hurt us. Other equally excellent institutions like University of California, Berkeley; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cornell University; etc.; don’t have a separate department for environmental engineering, so what difference does it make? I’m sure that a job recruiter will value a civil engineering graduate just as much as somebody with a bachelor’s in environmental engineering.

And imagine how much paper and ink we can save in our course catalogs if we printed civil and environmental engineering instead of civil engineering and environmental engineering separately. You can’t tell me that printing more ink on nice, glossy fine grade paper is better for the environment.

So really, que sera, sera... ’tis true, whatever will be, shall be.

Jason Lin