Leaving RPI

As mundane as it may be to write a whole post dedicated to leaving college after graduating, I feel as though my time at RPI deserves some reflection. As may be expected so soon following commencement, this post is likely to be the thoughts of a man looking back on his time with rose-tinted shades, and in fact I'm so apt to become lost in nostalgia that my shades may as well be brick-red.

I came to Troy as someone who was ready to leave high school. Not that I didn't enjoy my time in Andover, but I was eager to become a new person and transform my life. In fact, I remember the trumpets going off as I opened the link to the virtual acceptance letter and thinking, Wow, I'm going to college! These emotions cascaded into a melancholy about living away from home, but they quickly returned to timid excitement once I knew where and with whom I'd be living.

I'd never toured RPI prior to applying, so when it was time to move in, my family mistakenly parked on the far western side of campus, strolling around aimlessly until a helpful member of the faculty told us to head for the hills... Freshman hill, that is. I remember taking the assistance of a couple of Greek Life members and being mortified at the thought of them seeing me with my family; I was still in the phase where I believed they sought to embarrass me with every action. Regardless, soon I was all settled, and we had to say those last goodbyes... They were hard.

Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond (NRB), was perhaps the strangest experience of freshman year, and that's saying a lot. Despite knowing almost no one even following orientation, we were herded onto buses and sent off to Connecticut to spend a week at a youth camp. I recall sitting next to someone completely new on the bus ride, and talking the whole way about this and that - The Office vs. Parks and Recreation, and our majors, of course. I've since lost my acquaintance with that person... Anyway, it was on this odd, somewhat humiliating camping trip that I met some of my best friends. We immediately bonded over our shared love of music, even if our tastes differed. Once we got back, I knew I'd remain friends with them no matter what happened, and for that reason alone, I loved that silly experience. 

I swiftly met my other best friends at RPI; the first being my roommate, on whose family I must have made some inane impression, seeing as I had just returned, sweaty and wearing an ill-fitting cut-off, from NRB, and I had a meeting with the school newspaper to which I had to run off to just minutes after greeting them. Thankfully, first impressions weren't everything in their cases. I also met a couple of fantastic gentlemen in the game room at the RPI Student Union, where they told us, my roommate and me, how bad they were at pool before sweeping us in three straight games.

As with any friend group, there were growing pains, and over that year we all grew. I can speak only for myself, but I came into that year believing that academics had taken a backseat in my life, and that college was the time to party like it's 1985. However, through viewing the hard work of my peers and feeling the inadequacy of being an academically mediocre individual, I turned myself around and started putting school first. Of course, that meant I lost some friends and some connections, but those who stayed with me during that transformation were only those who deserved to be called friends.

I also realized in freshman year that I hadn't been taking care of my body since I stopped swimming. So, I resolved to take up weight-training and improve my diet. While I stumbled along the way, as most people do, this was a primary catalyst for my friend-group, as well as an important introduction to me of what it takes to push one's physical limits, and the corresponding rewards of doing so. In addition, I started reading again, and while the initial attempts were simply opening up Harry Potter again, the less challenging books eventually gave way to the in-depth philosophical works I now enjoy.

I completed my freshman year as an already changed individual, but it was just a soupçon of what was to come. That summer, I took some classes at a local community college and went to Yosemite with my family. It was here that I reconnected with nature and realized the grandiosity of the Earth. Prior experiences at Mount Haleakala in Hawaii had already left me with a taste for the supernatural aspects of the natural world, but seeing those rock formations and vast expanses of untamed land... It became the seed of the philosophical introspection which would define the beginnings of the second decade of my life.

Sophomore year saw a significant rise in academic challenge, though equipped as I was with a friend-group who inspired and pushed me, I was able to complete the first semester with an improvement from the last. Socially, I had noticed the aforementioned friend-group begin to falter. However, then came second semester... the fabled "Pandemic" hit us right in the middle of spring break. I remember the discourse being along the lines of, "It's just a few cases in Virginia; it can't possibly reach New York," to, "If it crosses the Hudson, it's already at RPI, and they'll shut down the school!", to, "Oh cool, we get an extra week of spring break!", to, "Oh... they're making us move out?", to, "Well, this'll be over in a month or so... see you guys for the summer ARCH!", to, "It's online?! But then...", and finally to the darkness of virtual classes which saw a rise in academic success for me given that I turned into a hermit who drastically reduced his exercise and had no social interactions whatsoever, but which also marked many personal low-points.

Once junior year kicked off, it was over before I knew it. Just a couple months of hybrid classes where I once again barely saw the friends, and then it was back at home for a little while before I went down to Maryland to work for nearly eight months.

At the end of that long road was the reinstatement of in-person instruction and the return of (almost) all my closest friends to the campus. It took us a little while to get reacquainted, but once we were it was a joyful time. Given that I had taken some classes at the community college, I had a light course load and was able to enjoy time with my friends more than ever. The fall semester went by in a flash, though this time there was more to enjoy. I was reading more than ever, my writing was going swimmingly, and I had returned to good form in the gym. Second semester senior year started off as light as fall, but once capstone took hold... There were times when the gym, my reading, and my writing fell completely by the wayside, as did any social fun with my friends.

However, there was light at the end of the road, as my group took home the prizes for best design and best process safety, and while Covid prevented me from attending the ChemE banquet which I'd been looking forward to, I was able to walk at commencement. I'd spent my time after classes had ended romping around with my friends, and so even though Covid took away the last few days of partying at college, I was still able to spend time with the people I cared about, which made up for any lost time.

That brings us neatly to the now. The adrenaline has worn off, the melancholic partings have become raw memories, and I've left my apartment in Troy. The obvious questions present themselves; would I have done anything differently? Did I make the most of my time at RPI? And, perhaps most importantly: was it all worth it?

It's hard for me to answer the first two questions. I'd have to say in general: no and yes, respectively. Of course, would I have improved my academic standing if I could go back to freshman year? Yes. Nevertheless, I think I needed to do poorly at first to see how far I could go. There's something Nietzschian about that, which is only fitting. As for making the most of my time... there are experiences I never had, but I think the lack of those experiences was more than compensated for by the time I spent with my friends; regardless of what we were doing, those moments will always be in my heart.

One other thing to consider in all of this is how my writing progressed from freshman to senior year. When I first came to RPI, I was writing my first novel, and I thought it'd be the one to launch me into writer-stardom. I was doing little else in the way of creative writing, but my passion for poetry was reignited by taking a poetry class at RPI. This, coupled with my deeper reading interests, led to the inception of my website in sophomore year. Here, I was able to grow and expand as a writer while having the journey documented. I also started writing my second novel, which I still believe is the best piece of writing I have created to date. Shortly after that, I wrote my third and fourth novels, and now, as I write this, I'm almost done with my fifth complete novel. While I haven't been able to publish any of these yet, they're still something of which I'm really proud, and I am actively seeking agents to help bring my work to market. Had I taken a different approach to any of my time at RPI, my writing would have come out incalculably different. One may argue that it could have been better, but it could have also been a lot worse, or (perish the thought), it could have never come to light.

Finally, the million dollar question: was it all worth it? Surprisingly, this question is the easiest to answer. Yes, it was worth it. The friends I've made here, closer to brothers than friends, will be my confidants for the rest of my days. The education I've earned feels complete and fulfilling, and I feel I ended senior as best I could. The faculty at the Chemical Engineering department of RPI were kind, helpful, and highly knowledgeable. Now, every student struggles with some classes, but even those with which I struggled were made easier by my professors making themselves available to provide assistance even at odd hours. At the end of four years, I can definitively say that I made lifelong friends, got a great education, and transformed myself completely from the clean-shaven, naïve individual who shook Shirley Ann Jackson's hand on the Approach, and that's worth all the money in the world.

See, I told you this post would be hopelessly rosy-eyed.