Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Hey, that college with the funny name!

My first recollection of RPI was as a kid, visiting my relatives in Troy, NY, my dad’s hometown. The trip from Washington, D.C. was 8 hours long, but what fun we had in Troy for a week or so each summer!

RPI was that nearby college just blocks away. Siena College and Russell Sage were also in the area—and I lumped them all together. Big mistake. RPI is in a class of its own.

Fast forward some 40-plus years—and now my oldest son John is a STUDENT at RPI. No parental pressure or legacy was to blame. John, a superior student (and that would be MY term, not his) wanted to study Engineering as his major, so RPI was one of the DOZEN (yes, 12!) schools he applied to. Aside from USC, we got to visit most of them, even Georgia Tech down in Atlanta.

After much soul-searching on his part, RPI came out on top. That the track team wanted him may have been the clincher, but I think John had an inner feeling that this was the right place for him. I must say that my respect for RPI has grown with each passing day.

Now in his junior year, John has been consistently on the Dean’s list as a double-major in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering (am I even SPELLING that correctly?)—and his mother and I could not be prouder of his accomplishments. I am also in AWE of the subject matter that John navigates each semester. A trip to the RPI bookstore is eye-opening. Peruse the textbook section to see an array of disciplines that you didn’t even know EXISTED.

Nothing like a trip to RPI to make me feel like a dope.

When I heard the Brooklyn Bridge was built by an RPI grad, I was duly impressed. More recently, the video game “Guitar Hero” also owes its invention to a Rensselaer alum.

Watch the following propaganda film about RPI and you’ll get an inkling of what these students tackle:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIJuA17pE7Y

In this economy especially, there is no substitute for lifelong learning—and for every problem afflicting man and womankind, there is likely a “geek” toiling away in an obscure laboratory on a campus like RPI—solving the problem quietly.

I am so proud of John—and of his sister Christina, just beginning her journey at Creighton University in Omaha (no doubt the subject of a future blog!). I am now finding it easier to turn the TV off for my youngest, Kevin, who at 9 years old, has yet to appreciate the value of the opportunities that accrue to those who “crack the books!”

Maybe “SpongeBob Squarepants” is educational TV, but I tell Kevin that unless he spends some time reading and learning, he could end up resembling that cartoon’s stupid starfish, “Patrick”. Even at 9 years, every kid understands this analogy.

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