(no subject)
(1) Zeroshapiro told me it was snot freezing cold in Troy. She wasn't kidding. The east coast humidity is apparently not as bad as in other places. Troy is right on the Hudson, and I have a suspicion that pressure differences between coastal and upstate New York tends to maintain a fairly steady stream of air blowing through the Hudson river valley. I visited in early April and it wasn't spring yet. Apparently, the snow had only melted the week before. There aren't a lot of evergreens in Troy and the grass tends to die over the winter, so Troy is universally brown right now.
(2) She also told me that Troy was OLD. She wasn't kidding. A lot of the buildings looked like they were early early 20th century and probably more like late 19th century. They were much narrower than today's buildings and the windows were more closely spaced with a more vertical aspect ratio than I'm used to. Obviously, these buildings were built in an era where there was no such thing as forced air or air conditioning. Some of them were in reasonably decent shape and others were splintered blasted heaps.
(3) It's hard to say if it was just the near universal brown-ness of pre-spring Troy, or if the area is just generally uglier. Everything seemed a lot dirtier than the west coast. I found myself wondering if people on the East Coast just don't care as much about visual asthetics. A more likely possibility is that I am from a more affluent part of the country, and just never realized how much of a difference that can make in so many subtle ways.
(4) The RPI campus was kind of dumpy compared to what I'm used to. A lot of the buildings had that classic old-school look to them, but pretty clearly needed some updating and exterior maintenance. The interior of the Chemical Engineering building was sorely in need of a good deal of remodeling as well. Apparently they just built a $450 million dollar bioengineering building. It's a NICE building, but I'm wondering what they put all of that money into. The Biodesign Institute building in Tempe was about half the size, but cost about a fifth of that ($96 Million). I had heard that the cost of doing business in New York was higher than elsewhere in the country, but I'm having a hard time believing that it's THAT much higher. I'm wondering why they didn't put a couple of million into rennovating some aspects of the Chemical Engineering Building. At the very least, they could have installed a modern service elevator. :) Some of the newer buildings were sometimes kinda cool, and sometimes really ugly. Not that the UW and OSU don't have some pretty "fugly" architectural mistakes from the 60's and 70's. I took a gander at some photos or RPI and troy when brown isn't the color of choice, and the area is a lot nicer looking. It really reminds me of Portland's Old Town district. I liked that part of my home town. Still, I have a suspicion that RPI and Troy are a LOT easier on the eyes once shit starts GROWING.
(5) The departmet at Troy is smaller than that of UC Davis. They just had a couple of professors retire in the last couple of years, but they also just hired a few more and are looking to hire another three before this fall. The department has a decidedly strong bio-emphasis. It seemed that while the department was quite proud of some of the really succesful bio-related research that has come out of it recently, they were a bit concerned about the entire department getting overly specialized in just that area. One of the professors I had a sit-down with expressed great pleasure that a "real" chemical engineer was interested in coming to RPI. Apparently most prospective students arrive already wanting to do "bio" reasearch. The graduate coordinator also expressed great please at having a "real" chemical engineer. It was flattering, but kind of odd, I suppose. I didn't realize that "real" chemical engineers were in such short supply. The general impression that I got was that the department (and the school) was putting itself back together after some kind of slump it had gone through in the last decade or two. Apparently the school had just gotten a $365 million dollar anonymous donation and there were some hints that the school was sitting on close to a billion in cash from other sources. So yeah, RPI is rolling in the dough.
(6) The department was in some sense less welcoming than UC Davis. I couldn't discern whether the difference was due to (a) an east coast vs. west coast cultural difference, (b) visiting as a singular student rather than as a group of many potential students or (c) the people in the department were just generally a bit more cranky than people in Davis. It was probably a combination of all three. It's not that they weren't nice. I just felt a lot more like someone from the outside at RPI. I think that Davis went through a lot of effort to make the prospective students feel very comfortable, whereas RPI didn't make as much of an effort to do that. Most likely, that was simply because I was a singular visitor vs. part of a larger group. A lot of the talks with the professors felt a bit more like a job interview than anything else. Also, it was a lot more difficult to figure out exactly what the various professors were doing with their research. Sometimes, the profs would start talking about what they did and it wouldn't be until about half-way through the session that I actually figured out why what they were doing mattered or was interesting. "Diffusion of metals through polymer films? Ummm, how exciting? Oh, you're researching using polymers as dielectric layers for transistors? Wow, that's cool!" Sort of like that. Also, I only met a single female professor, though it sounds like there's at least two more.
(7) I noticed a definite difference between graduate students at RPI and Davis. At Davis, the grad students were really laid back, very nice, able to talk about their research but generally didn't strike me as being overly . . . nerdy. At RPI, it was just the opposite. I didn't meet a single female graduate student. The graduate students I did meet were very smart but for the most part, pretty damned dorky. They were more opinionated and mouthy and seemed very willing to talk smack about someone that they didn't think was their intellectual peer. They even trashed on one of the professors I spoke with because they didn't think his research had much merit, comparing it to blue smoke and mirrors. They were able to back-up their opinions with what sounded like reasonable arguments, so they weren't just being assholes. It's pretty clear that the departmental culture at RPI is a lot more competative and a lot more open about critiquing the work of people who aren't up to whatever standards there are. Oh yeah, and they were all pretty nerdy.
(8) I'm a bit concerned that the department has a leadership problem. The department chair is currently and interim department chair and from the sounds of it, several other professors have been interim department chairs in the last couple of years. It didn't sound like this was a choice that the faculty had made on their own, but was either being imposed on them by an outside source (and one Prof did mention that there's a lot of friction between the RPI faculty and the school administrators) or was simply that some people in the department didn't want the responsibility of running the department but also didn't want a strong department chair that would have the authority to push them around a bit. The department clearly had a cadre of "Big Swinging Dick" professors that set the general tone for the department. These guys all sound like they're very succesful and have a ton of money and a lot of graduate students. I think they're the ones that also tend to swing the department towards being a bit more abrasive. One of the professors I spoke with (and one of the big swinging dicks) made some comments about two of the other professors and I heard those comments more or less reiterated by graduate students later that evening. Granted, the students were a lot less professional about they way they expressed their opinions. It sort of concerns me when professors are ever willing to say anything that's the least big negative about another professor to prospective students.
So yeah, I was really hoping that RPI would be far and away better than Davis, but I really can't say that. Right now I'm leaning towards Davis, but I'm not leaning hard enough to make any actual decisions one way or the other.
(2) She also told me that Troy was OLD. She wasn't kidding. A lot of the buildings looked like they were early early 20th century and probably more like late 19th century. They were much narrower than today's buildings and the windows were more closely spaced with a more vertical aspect ratio than I'm used to. Obviously, these buildings were built in an era where there was no such thing as forced air or air conditioning. Some of them were in reasonably decent shape and others were splintered blasted heaps.
(3) It's hard to say if it was just the near universal brown-ness of pre-spring Troy, or if the area is just generally uglier. Everything seemed a lot dirtier than the west coast. I found myself wondering if people on the East Coast just don't care as much about visual asthetics. A more likely possibility is that I am from a more affluent part of the country, and just never realized how much of a difference that can make in so many subtle ways.
(4) The RPI campus was kind of dumpy compared to what I'm used to. A lot of the buildings had that classic old-school look to them, but pretty clearly needed some updating and exterior maintenance. The interior of the Chemical Engineering building was sorely in need of a good deal of remodeling as well. Apparently they just built a $450 million dollar bioengineering building. It's a NICE building, but I'm wondering what they put all of that money into. The Biodesign Institute building in Tempe was about half the size, but cost about a fifth of that ($96 Million). I had heard that the cost of doing business in New York was higher than elsewhere in the country, but I'm having a hard time believing that it's THAT much higher. I'm wondering why they didn't put a couple of million into rennovating some aspects of the Chemical Engineering Building. At the very least, they could have installed a modern service elevator. :) Some of the newer buildings were sometimes kinda cool, and sometimes really ugly. Not that the UW and OSU don't have some pretty "fugly" architectural mistakes from the 60's and 70's. I took a gander at some photos or RPI and troy when brown isn't the color of choice, and the area is a lot nicer looking. It really reminds me of Portland's Old Town district. I liked that part of my home town. Still, I have a suspicion that RPI and Troy are a LOT easier on the eyes once shit starts GROWING.
(5) The departmet at Troy is smaller than that of UC Davis. They just had a couple of professors retire in the last couple of years, but they also just hired a few more and are looking to hire another three before this fall. The department has a decidedly strong bio-emphasis. It seemed that while the department was quite proud of some of the really succesful bio-related research that has come out of it recently, they were a bit concerned about the entire department getting overly specialized in just that area. One of the professors I had a sit-down with expressed great pleasure that a "real" chemical engineer was interested in coming to RPI. Apparently most prospective students arrive already wanting to do "bio" reasearch. The graduate coordinator also expressed great please at having a "real" chemical engineer. It was flattering, but kind of odd, I suppose. I didn't realize that "real" chemical engineers were in such short supply. The general impression that I got was that the department (and the school) was putting itself back together after some kind of slump it had gone through in the last decade or two. Apparently the school had just gotten a $365 million dollar anonymous donation and there were some hints that the school was sitting on close to a billion in cash from other sources. So yeah, RPI is rolling in the dough.
(6) The department was in some sense less welcoming than UC Davis. I couldn't discern whether the difference was due to (a) an east coast vs. west coast cultural difference, (b) visiting as a singular student rather than as a group of many potential students or (c) the people in the department were just generally a bit more cranky than people in Davis. It was probably a combination of all three. It's not that they weren't nice. I just felt a lot more like someone from the outside at RPI. I think that Davis went through a lot of effort to make the prospective students feel very comfortable, whereas RPI didn't make as much of an effort to do that. Most likely, that was simply because I was a singular visitor vs. part of a larger group. A lot of the talks with the professors felt a bit more like a job interview than anything else. Also, it was a lot more difficult to figure out exactly what the various professors were doing with their research. Sometimes, the profs would start talking about what they did and it wouldn't be until about half-way through the session that I actually figured out why what they were doing mattered or was interesting. "Diffusion of metals through polymer films? Ummm, how exciting? Oh, you're researching using polymers as dielectric layers for transistors? Wow, that's cool!" Sort of like that. Also, I only met a single female professor, though it sounds like there's at least two more.
(7) I noticed a definite difference between graduate students at RPI and Davis. At Davis, the grad students were really laid back, very nice, able to talk about their research but generally didn't strike me as being overly . . . nerdy. At RPI, it was just the opposite. I didn't meet a single female graduate student. The graduate students I did meet were very smart but for the most part, pretty damned dorky. They were more opinionated and mouthy and seemed very willing to talk smack about someone that they didn't think was their intellectual peer. They even trashed on one of the professors I spoke with because they didn't think his research had much merit, comparing it to blue smoke and mirrors. They were able to back-up their opinions with what sounded like reasonable arguments, so they weren't just being assholes. It's pretty clear that the departmental culture at RPI is a lot more competative and a lot more open about critiquing the work of people who aren't up to whatever standards there are. Oh yeah, and they were all pretty nerdy.
(8) I'm a bit concerned that the department has a leadership problem. The department chair is currently and interim department chair and from the sounds of it, several other professors have been interim department chairs in the last couple of years. It didn't sound like this was a choice that the faculty had made on their own, but was either being imposed on them by an outside source (and one Prof did mention that there's a lot of friction between the RPI faculty and the school administrators) or was simply that some people in the department didn't want the responsibility of running the department but also didn't want a strong department chair that would have the authority to push them around a bit. The department clearly had a cadre of "Big Swinging Dick" professors that set the general tone for the department. These guys all sound like they're very succesful and have a ton of money and a lot of graduate students. I think they're the ones that also tend to swing the department towards being a bit more abrasive. One of the professors I spoke with (and one of the big swinging dicks) made some comments about two of the other professors and I heard those comments more or less reiterated by graduate students later that evening. Granted, the students were a lot less professional about they way they expressed their opinions. It sort of concerns me when professors are ever willing to say anything that's the least big negative about another professor to prospective students.
So yeah, I was really hoping that RPI would be far and away better than Davis, but I really can't say that. Right now I'm leaning towards Davis, but I'm not leaning hard enough to make any actual decisions one way or the other.