Looking to attend college in the Fall?
My name is John Vielkind-Neun and I'm a Sophomore at Clarkson University. It seems like not many FIRSTers outside of New England know about our fine institution, so I just wanted to share it. Clarkson University is located in Potsdam, NY (upstate). It is a top notch school, with a strong academic program and school of engineering.
The best part is, Clarkson U is a FIRST school! That's right folks, Team 229 - Division by Zero is one of Clarkson's award winning SPEED teams (Student Projects for Engineering Experience and Design). These SPEED teams are really what makes Clarkson stand out from other engineering schools. They are designed as multidisciplinary design projects, where people of all different majors and ages come together to cooperatively complete a project. There are several such teams, like: Mini-Baja, Mini-Indy, SolarCar, Concrete Canoe, Steel & Timber Bridge, Zero emission snowmobile, and FIRST Robotics.
These teams are all representative of Clarkson as a whole. The University is really one big community. Everyone is very friendly, and polite. There is little or no competition among students for grades, everyone works together to succeed. Clarkson is also a strong supporter of group, and project based learning.
All of my experiences up here have been great so far. All my proffessors have been extremely accomodating and friendly. The weather is a little cold (I won't lie, it's cold) but the campus is beautiful.
We also offer scholarships to HS FIRST participants!
The application will be provided in each team's FIRST competition documentation, and can also be downloaded here-->
http://www.clarkson.edu/admission/firstscholarship.doc
I know this sounds like a sales pitch, but I have just been extremely happy so far up here. No, admissions didn't put me up to this
. I hope everyone at least takes a look, because while Clarkson isn't the perfect fit for everyone, it is definitely worth a glance. I have met several people who found out about Clarkson as HSers in the FIRST program, and have since come up here and loved it. Check us out!
The admissions page can be found here --->
http://www.clarkson.edu/admission/
A telling statistic about our school is that almost every alum who graduates is happy with the time they spent here. It sounds like a cliche, but it really is a friendly, family like atmosphere.
Thanks,