Not the Rensselaer Handbook

Written by Steve Staton, Tom White, and others

18 September 1985

Adapted by DrBarnack, 2024

Introduction

Not the Rensselaer Handbook is intended to be a source of invaluable knowledge concerning the activities of students at RPI. It is written to be used as a reference guide to not only surviving at RPI, but for surviving with style. You could almost call Not the Handbook the “Passer-by’s Guide to Rensselaer.” However, we won’t. Not the Handbook is not intended to be used as a collector’s item, a scholastic aid, or a measure of the literary skill of the students involved, but rather as a tool to aid current, past and future students of RPI, in their attempts to live at and work with the school.

The staff of Not the Handbook would like to thank the many hours of help it received from: the Association of Computer Machinery for the funds to digitally prepare the text; the Archives Department of the Folsom Library, whose staff were most helpful in preparing the history section of the text, and for other random items of information; and the Information and Personal Assistance Center for their cooperation with our Chapter of Lists investigations. Finally, we would like to thank the entire school for being the crazy institution it is, for how else could this thing be created?

Not the Rensselaer Handbook is the views, opinions, and experiences of the staff of Not the Rensselaer Handbook. It is not intended to reflect, and does not necessarily inflect, the views of the faculty, staff, or administration of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, any group of students of the Institute other than the above-named Not the Handbook staff, or anybody else.