Virginia Tech is an amazing school and the campus is located in Blacksburg, Virginia. There are roughly 34,400 students on and off the campus. There are so many opportunities at Virginia Tech and a vast amount of things to experience while being there. Here are a few cool facts about the wonderful school that is Virginia Tech.
1. Hokie Stone
Recognizing that Hokie Stone gives Virginia Tech a distinctive visual identification, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors directed that the native limestone is incorporated in all new buildings on the central campus. Who knew you could love stone?
2. Corps Tradition at Virginia Tech
Tech remains one of only three public universities in the United States to support both a military and a non-military student lifestyle. Although the corps comprises just 3 percent of the undergraduate student body, a cadet has been named Undergraduate Man of the Year four times in the past eight years and the past three undergraduate student leaders of the year have been cadets.
3. Torgersen Hall at Virginia Tech
When Torgersen Hall–named for former Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen–officially opened in October 2000, it became the university’s most technologically sophisticated building. Home to the Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center, Torgersen Hall spans Alumni Mall with arguably its most stunning feature: an electronic reading room that connects the hall with Newman Library. Couches, a wide-open space, and cherry-wood arched ceilings create the feel of the old library reading room with a modern touch–students can use their laptops or one of the room’s 40 computers and, if needed, confer with an on-duty technology consultant.
4. Studies on Sport Injuries
During each 2003 home football game, four Hokies wore helmets rigged with sensors that recorded impacts and then transmitted real-time data to a sideline computer. Stefan Duma and other researchers in the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences hope to use the data to determine not only the level at which impacts begin to cause injury but also the cumulative effects of those impacts.
5. Dining at Virginia Tech
From its restaurants and programs to its chefs and menus, Virginia Tech’s Dining Program has been recognized with numerous national awards. Most recently, the 2006 Outstanding Design Award from American School & University Magazine went to D2, one of Tech’s 11 restaurants that serve more than 5 million meals each year and offer a broad range of creative and healthful choices.
6. Miles of Research
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the largest university-level research center at Tech, is working on more than 90 projects. Recently, researchers conducted the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study, which examined driver inattention. Widely quoted across the nation, the study was the first of its kind conducted in a naturalistic setting, documenting actual driving behavior, and resulted in approximately 43,000 hours of data collected and more than 2 million miles driven.
There are so much more cool facts about Virginia Tech, but the facts above gives a glimpse into the amazing and astonishing things that Virginia Tech has to offer. After reading this, who wouldn’t want to be a hokie?!
