As incoming and returning students preparing to arrive on campus in late August, we must take time to reflect on what we want our Rensselaer experience to be, or how we are measuring up to our initial expectations for our college experience. It is solely up to us to define our own path, be the author of our lives, and take the initiative to continue in a rich tradition of discovery and innovation as a lifestyle, not simply a profession.
The decisions that we make today will set a trend that will define our lives. At the end of our college tenure we will leave with a Rensselaer degree, common among all our peers, but it is our interpersonal skills and leadership experience that will determine our options beyond Rensselaer. These experiences and traits will be the limiting factor when it comes to our future.
Leadership is about taking advantage of opportunities. The Rensselaer Union is filled with opportunities. Take the initiative. Start something new, provide a lethargic club with the energy necessary to expand and grow. Express yourself in the arts, serve the greater good and get involved in your community, compete in athletics; just get involved, and you will find that the most rewarding parts of your education will occur outside of the classroom.
As rewarding as our experiences will be while in Troy, the leadership skills and interests we develop and refine through the Union will create opportunities for us, years beyond Rensselaer. The future for technology-based careers is quickly changing. Engineers and scientists will no longer be asked to complete mundane or repeatable tasks regardless of their difficulty due to the increasing availability of overseas talent. You will face jobs that will push you to develop innovative and challenging solutions to problems that will require imagination and creativity. I encourage you to develop these traits through the multitude of interdisciplinary programs offered at Rensselaer as well as through the Student Union. Americans with jobs in technology-based industries will be given challenges that are not addressed in textbooks and will require drawing knowledge from unconventional sources.
The engineers of tomorrow will have to rely on a wide array of skills, most of which will take seed in our undergraduate years. So I encourage you, I challenge you, and I implore you to take a thorough look at what Rensselaer, and in specific the Rensselaer Union, may have to offer your individual interests. As a Union, it is our mission to provide you with the resources to pursue your passion, whatever they may be. So welcome to our new students, and prepare to follow in paths of our Rensselaer predecessors, whose curiosity and innovative spirits have defined the history of technology and innovation for well over a century.
