By Vivian Rost-Nasshan ’26, dual major in industrial and management engineering and sustainability studies 

Before I attended a single class at RPI, I found myself learning about a sport most people have never heard of, and meeting students who were pushing the bounds of manufacturing on campus. I didn’t know it then, but those two moments would become just as defining as everything I’d study over the next four years. Graduating with a dual degree in industrial and management engineering and sustainability studies gave me an interdisciplinary lens, but it was the clubs and organizations at RPI that truly taught me how learning from different communities and backgrounds can reshape your perspective entirely. 

It all started during Navigating Rensselaer & Beyond, RPI’s orientation program, where I was introduced to RPI Quadball and Rensselaer Motorsport. While both clubs compete nationally, they showed me the range of extracurriculars students partake in. One group plays an all-gender sport that is a mashup between dodgeball, basketball, and rugby, and the other challenges their engineering skills building an electric race car. This dichotomy set the tone for my four years: you can choose to do anything, and RPI will teach you how to do it well. 

My freshman year deepened that foundation. I joined the Student Senate and was accepted into Engineering Ambassadors, and suddenly I had four organizations shaping who I was becoming. These clubs gave me outlets to give back to RPI and the Troy community and broaden my understanding of how engineering and business can meld together. Each group involves people who think differently, which consistently challenged me to expand how I approach problems and leadership. 

What surprised me most was how porous the boundaries between these experiences turned out to be. Nothing stayed siloed. The communication and trust built on the Quadball pitch showed up in cross-team collaboration in the Motorsport garage. The presentation and teaching skills I developed in Engineering Ambassadors prepared me, more than I realized at the time, to communicate with staff, faculty, and students when I later served as Grand Marshal — a role that asked me to represent the entire student body and think beyond any single community I belonged to. 

That progression felt natural only in hindsight. In the moment, I was just showing up, saying yes, and trusting that the people around me had something to teach me. And they always did. 

Each organization didn't just give me a new skill — it gave me a new perspective and deepened my sense of community. I came here for an education and left with something harder to name: a genuine understanding of how much you can grow when you stay curious and try new things. Looking back, I'm truly grateful I chose RPI four years ago. My only wish is that I'd had more time.