To the Editor:
I remember when I first came to RPI: The flowers were planted, the campus was littered with flyers promoting the PU and GM, and there wasn’t an office on campus that didn’t want to talk to me. I looked at this prestigious institute and the warm welcome it was throwing and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker, only to realize now, three years later, that I was a victim of the public relations machine that is RPI. President Jackson (Shirley to some of us) has set in place her Office of the First-Year Experience … wait a minute … I thought college was at least four years? I think someone needs to inform RPI that college isn’t about just the first year, in my opinion I’d have to say that the second, third, and fourth years are just as important, if not more so.
In recent experiences with the offices of the registrar and the bursar, I have come upon some of the rudest and most uncooperative people I have met in my entire life. Apparently these people forget that I, the lowly third year undergraduate, am entitled to at least common decency, and even more, polite treatment.
It is no wonder that RPI has one of the lowest alumni giving rates of any private institution. We needed the $360 million. Our alumni don’t want to give any of their hard earned money to help a school that doesn’t seek to help its own undergraduates. The U.S. News and World Report gave RPI a rank of 48th for alumni giving at what rate? An abysmal 24 percent. I think that the RPI administration needs to look closer at how they treat undergraduate students, I think they need to understand that college is not just about the first year. I think they need to see that upperclassmen are under quite a deal of stress and that being treated rudely or discourteously does not help the image we have of the Institute. Treat us nicely and we’ll treat you nicely later on.
I would, however, like to give credit to the Financial Aid Office. They are the only office that I have dealt with that has been both understanding of undergraduate situations and willing to help solve them. They do it with both politeness and professionalism I have not seen in the other administrative offices at Rensselaer.
Joe Grant
CHEM ’03
