Proud of My Alma Mater

I saw an interesting article in Friday's New York Daily News, and it's about a survey taken by U.S. News and World Report ranking the top 100 high schools in the United States. Six New York City schools made the list. And one is my alma mater: Brooklyn Technical High School.

Tech was ranked number 39 on the list. Also making the list was a number of the 'usual suspects" you'd guess would make a Top 100 list from New York: Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, Staten Island Tech, Townsend Harris HS and New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math (can't say I've ever heard of that school).

It's always been a great source of pride for me that I graduated from Brooklyn Tech. It has always been one of my greatest accomplishments that I went there. You have to take an entrance exam in order to get in, and very few make it. Tech was without question the toughest school academically I ever attended. When I first got there, I thought I might wash out. I took classes in such subjects as mechanical drawing, material science and pattern making. And everyone was required to take those subjects, and I spent the last two years there majoring in electrical engineering. It was tough to get through, but I knew one day I'd look back on those days with pride. And I was right.

I had heard in recent years the school has gone through some tough times. They had a very controversial principal who rubbed a lot of the teachers, students, parents and alumni the wrong way. He was finally forced out in 2006. Unfortunately too often I would pick up the paper and find some story about Tech that always seemed to cast it in a negative light. I heard that things like the school newspaper and radio station had fallen into disrepair, but under principal Randy Asher, Brooklyn Tech has rebounded in recent times, and that's good to hear.

I'm also glad to hear that the school's academic standards are still as high as when I went there. (I graduated in 1979.) And I was really pleased to hear Tech is the 39th best high school in the USA. I'm sure it's a source of pride for all alumni, as well as the current students who attend Tech.

Tech Alma Mater, Noble and True
Proudly we arise to salute thee anew
Loyal we stand now 4000 strong,
Wake, echoes, wake as we thunder our song.

Tech we will sound thy triumphs,
Tech, we will sing of the might and thy fame.
Tech, may we bring thee glory,
All honor and praise to thy name.

Firm thy foundation, thy torch leads the way,
Guide us, protect us through bright days or gray.
Tower symbolic of truth and of light,
Here's to thy colors, the blue and the white!

Tech we will sound thy triumphs,
Tech, we will sing of the might and thy fame.
Tech, may we bring thee glory,
All honor and praise to thy name.