Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Date: Jan 13 2007
Major: Computer Science (This Major's Salary over time)
RPI was unique in that it had "lovable geeks", students obsessed about learning without playing the cloak'n'dagger routine—a routine where students are secretive in order to score higher on a relative basis. RPI students lack the greed to protect their time from idle chat or to conceal valuable information from classmates, resulting in a wonderfully open atmosphere. This is an atmosphere in which secrets of quantum computing are gladly revealed, and esoteric research on biotech is meticulously explained by an otherwise harried classmate. At RPI, the culture of "open-source", based on the idea that information deserves to proliferate, undoubtedly prevails over the culture of "winning", based on the sole objective of scoring higher than others (tantamount to saying others need to score lower). The net result? Very academically-focused students who needn't view their peers as competitors. The only downside is that the dog-eat-dog world of corporate R&D seems completely alien at first when leaving the RPI meritocracy.