Random Thought: Utilize your dining hall access by grabbing a fruit snack to bring back to your residence hall for later.

The topics of my blog today will include two things: flying and Lake Placid, which are both completely amazing individually and then when you put them together it’s like woah.

RPI has given me the chance to get involved in some pretty awesome clubs and do things that I never thought of before this year. The fact of the matter is, activities are my favorite part of being a student at Rensselaer. My biggest and most important piece of advice for anyone coming to RPI is to GET INVOLVED! Whether you try something new by signing up for some clubs at the Activities Fair at the beginning of the year, start your own club, or get involved with an athletic team, it will be worth it, trust me.

RPI gives you so many opportunities to branch out and get involved with practically anything. Personally, I love anything dealing with aviation, so I immediately joined the Rensselaer Aeronautical Federation or RAF. Being involved with RAF, put me on track to get my private pilot’s license. I started taking my piloting ground school lessons the first semester and now this summer I’m actually going to be taking actual flight lessons. I can’t wait to start training, but in the mean time, I attend a weekly RAF meeting. At these meetings we decide where we want to take our next flying trip and hold “RPI Fly-Bys” for the entire campus where students actually get to fly over the RPI campus for only $20.

This past week RAF went to Lake Placid, NY, the home of the 1980 Winter Olympics. The day was amazing and we could see for miles. We left around 10 a.m. and drove to Schenectady County Airport where we boarded our little Cessna and took-off up the Hudson River Valley making our way past Lake George, over the ski-resorts, olympic ski-lifts, and frozen lakes, to land safely nestled in the mountains of the north. Usually our time spent on the ground is short, except for our night trip to NYC when we were stranded in Central New Jersey due to snow, but this trip was no exception and we were back at RPI by 8 p.m.

I’ve included some photos from our Lake Placid trip. Just think how much more exciting these pictures would be if you actually were in the plane!

Enjoy!

 

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